Saul Elbein, Stray Cat Owner

Here's a story for you: I woke up yesterday morning to a large Russian woman standing in my apartment, yelling at me in Hebrew: "WHO'S CAT IS THIS?!"

I look over at my roommate, Dan, who has also just woken up. He looks like he's trying to wake up from a bad dream. I have two parallel thoughts. One: I never, ever want to wake up to this again. Russians are scary, especially in your apartment. Two: cat?

Israel in general and Jerusalem in particular are notorious for stray cats; the Middle East had a huge rat problem in the 30s and the British, who were then running the place, solved it with about as much foresight as they solved the rest of the region's problems. They released boatloads of cats. Now, there are no rats, and cats are everywhere. Including, apparently, the Beit Canada Absorbtion Center.



Russian woman kept yelling, so I got up. A small gray cat--probably like 6 months--was sitting on our dining room floor, meowing loudly. Galina--the Russian woman--pointed at the cat and told me to get it out. I scoop up cat and take it out of the apartment. Galina keeps yelling something about a new roommate coming, presumably not the cat. I smile and nod until she walks out.



Cat under bed


Dan walks over. We confer. We decide three things:

1. The cat is cute,
2. The cat clearly chose us, using apparently magical powers to get through a locked door,
3. Our keeping the cat will really, really piss off the Jewish Agency, as well as our obnoxious, anal-retentive religious roommate, DB, who flips if there is dirt on his soap. If he (cat or DB) stays, there will be trouble.
   

This decided, we retrieve the cat from the hallway. It meows pathetically. We look for food. The cat rejects corn, pita, non-dairy creamer, and, strangely, soy milk. We are annoyed at the cat's lack of gratitude, as it has shown up without supplies and acts entitled to ours. Cat is lucky that we didn't eat it.


Cat dissing our food


We find some tuna, probably belonging to DB. We give it to the cat. The cat eats it and stops meowing. We throw it in the bedroom, give it a bed. I walk out. Suddenly, I hear a cry of pain from Dan. I walk back in and the cat is flying around the room, attacking any vertical surface with its claws. We don't have string, so I play with it with a long piece of toilet paper until it passes out on a nest of toilet paper shreds. I decide I am a good cat owner. I leave.

Fast forward a few hours. I come back to DB ranting about how we did not consult him about bringing a cat in the room, and how it better stay in our room. I reply that I understand it bothers him, but on the other hand he can go tell the Jewish Agency that we already have four beings living in our room, and then maybe they won't send another roommate. This makes him slightly happier, until he realizes that it is ridiculous. He walk into our room, and picks up the cat, which scratches him fiercely. He announces that he is going to get rid of the cat. We laugh and say whatever. He tells us that it's a safety and health hazard, and that cats are like Israeli rats. We point out that the cat will eat Israeli rats. Unconvinced, DB picks up the cat and takes it outside. We are shocked by his lack of humanity. He feels completely justified. We feel better about feeding the cat his tuna.

So the cat is gone. But now that I think about it, it really resembled one some friends of mine in the building adopted before they left. I played with it before, and, surprise, it showed up at our apartment. So I have every belief that it will be back. And when it is, we may shave it against the heat. On DB's bed.