So, I happen to be one of the world largest cat-lovers. No, just kidding. I hate common household cats.

I just want to say that there is a difference between a household cat and a rural cat. A rural cat does not belong to somebody in particular. She or he occasionally decides to give us humble humans a visit.

For example, there was a cat in the village I grew up in that was called dirty old bastard. Sometimes, the bastard just showed up, and you were expected to feed it. Well, and he showed up when your other cats were congregating to find a lady friend. We found out his area of living stretched over as far as 6 villages, 19 families who fed him and 50 square kilometers.

Now, the common household cat is something that I deeply despise. It does not clean itself regularly, it is over bred, and it lacks the elegance I learned to love in rural cats.

Now, at this point,it is a common knowledge that I do not write articles in that section just to brag about myself. No, my first goal is, as always, teach my fellow male geeks about the things in life that just happen.

For example, you came home, and a girl awaited you with the best of all cooked meals. Expert boyfriends get suspicious, if this is done for no particular reason at all. Most of you will not listen to the little blinking light in your head. So, you will proceed.

So, your girl gives you the sweetest of all back and belly rubs of all times, you two look each other in the eye, and you know that it is going to be frigging good.

Now, four hours later, after much nookie (And there was much rejoicing… (anyone who can place this quote kudos to you)), your girl cuddles up to your mighty body, pets your little soldier a bit, and just as you think you can take of into the sweet land of dreams, your girl turns around, and says:

“By the way, my kitty needs bathing. He stinks, would you please?”

I really hate such situations. But what the heck, I love to bath kitties.

See, in my village, dirty old bastard belonged to a nice old man with a PDP-11 in his garage, so I had to do stuff to help him. Which included bathing said bastard cat.

Well, as soon as the other kids heard from it, bets were made. So and so much if I would dare to do so, and survive it. Well, back in the day, it was over 400 bucks, which was quite a bit for me.

So, I prepared. I looked at the house, drew plans, and calculated a lot. Then, the bastard shat on my Amiga. For those of you not familiar with the craft, an Amiga was a very good and very expensive computer to replace, back in the days. With much more menace then I knew, I formulated a plan that would not only allow me revenge on the cat,but on my friends too who had laughed shamelessly on my misery.

So, in company of my friends, I approached the subject in two layers of dirty rotten clothes. He was just too willing after I had picked him up, mainly because I doused myself in Catnip-oil, and he was happily tripping away in my arms. So, I carried him over to the old mans house. Now, the old man, the sister of the old man, my friends, several other kids and even some adults were there.

So, I asked them to stay back, while the bastard was just having the weirdest of all visions, because he was purring like he was with some lady friend, yet he was digging his claws in my skin. So, I proceeded to the bathroom area, where a pot of fresh sour cream was waiting for him, and some more catnip.

Just for the layout: The bathroom was divided in three main areas. Area one: place to swing the door open. Area two, on the right side of area one: Shower with solid Plexiglas door. To the left: tiny toilet.

So, I came in, and a few things happened very fast thereafter:

1. I threw the door close with my foot.
2. I turned to the left.
3. I dumped the stunned cat in the toilet.
4. I closed both lids, and jumped on them to shut them.
5. I flushed. Three times.

What the cat did not know was that I had something against his attempts to escape the toilet. The most nasty ass shampoo. Which I had filled in a super soaker, that was already pumped to full pressure volume, and which I repeatedly quirted though the space between the closed lids.

I only managed to squirt trice.

Let me draw a comparison to a popular movie. Do any of you kids out there still know what “The Exorcist” is? If yes, then you will know the scene I am referring to. Now, while I stood on the toilet seat, and squirted shampoo in there, the cat not only began to make similar tongue-speaking ( I guess it was Arabic, or very dirty Russian). No, it also caused the lid to rise several centimeters.

Just to review. The cat was about ten pounds, and I weighed at that time about 100.

Now, after repeated flushing and squirting, the cat stopped bouncing against the lid. Now, I only had to complete my last part. Innocently, I asked if anyone could give me a towel.

The door opened, and I “slipped” from the toilet.

What came out was not the Bastard anymore. It was a variation of Schroedinger’s cat…

(For all of those not familiar with Disc world, basic Schroedinger’s cat is that you can not determine if a cat inside a box is alive or death unless you open the lid, so the cat inside the box must exist in a sort of undecided state. The variation Pratchett invented made much more sense.

If a cat comes out of a closed box, it has one of three states. Dead, alive or bloody furious.)

Forget all the funny videos from youtube or these other streaming-sites, what came out was the pure devil. 10 pounds of wet, soapy, very angry cat that wanted through a door blocked by as many as 30 persons.

Of course, that cat won.

(What most of us don’t realize, cats move in all three dimensions on their own. X,Y and Z axis covered. For them, it makes no difference if they run up a tree or a person’s leg. They will get where they want to).

So, finally, half of my village got treated with cat-scratches, while I was all fine. The old man said he had never ever seen or heard something so funny.

Well, to go back to the original story, and the original theme of this, I could not go as harsh on the cat of my Bedmate as on the bastard.

So, I decided to do it geek style.

I set myself a target-time of one week. Friday evening, where no one would be around, I would bath her cat.

I acquired Intel from former cat bathers, and it was just…

See, that cats name is Tanya, and when I just mentioned the name face to face, I got similar reactions as from a veteran during a Vietnam flashback. It was very scary, and very rewarding. Preferably, the cat went straight for the eyes, the chest, or the crotch. One woman actually showed me her midriff to convince me that that cat was possessed by a demon. These scratches were scary…

Now, at Thursday, I went shopping, and I borrowed some stuff from friends.

On Friday, I entered the little apartment, and got dressed up. My girl admitted that I looked like something out of the sick brain of Steven King. Or, to do the popular advertisement:

• Full motorcycle helmet: 3 packs of cigarettes for a day.
• Goalie-mask: 10 Bucks.
• Ironworker’s gloves out of half an inch thick steel/leather: 20 Bucks.
• Crotch protector: 50 Bucks
• Soccer goalie gloves: 10 bucks
• Kevlar-reinforced vest: 20 cigarettes, and he requested a video of the procedure.
• Workman’s vest: 15 bucks
• Two bottles of shampoo,cat friendly: 10 bucks
• Doc Martens: owned them
• three pairs of socks: owned them
• three pair of jeans one over another: owned them
• Cross country equipment for dirt bikers: borrowed it for a copy of the video
• Newspaper rolled around forearms : free
• Look on your girlfriends face when she sees you: Priceless

So, I putt all of this on, one layer after an other, and finally, as I first pulled on the helmet, and then the goalie mask, I set up my trusty web cam, two loudspeakers, and moved all loose equipment out of the exit-way.

Then, I hid in that little bathroom.

I did not have to hide for very long. I heard the gentle voice, soothing the kitten to her best ability’s, while I drenched the outer pockets of my vest with shampoo. Then, she was right in front of the bathroom-door.

I opened it, took the bedazzled cat with a nice “make my day, Biatch!”, slammed the door shut, heard the key turn in the lock, and walked straight in the shower, fully clothed. I had the kitty in an easy position, closed the door behind us, and flipped the water on with my elbow. It was already kind of lukewarm, when hell broke loose.

A few myth that I would like you to know about cats:

1. It is true that they can climb a clear plastic wall.
2. It is also true that they can tear through jeans.
3. And it is very true that they do so with a speed that is almost impossible to match.

Well, I simply held the kitty tight with both hands, and rubbed her against my chest, where I had the soap and shampoo dispensed in. It was quite bubbly, and at least i had good load of fun washing that kitty four full times,and rinsing her afterwards.

Well, after the kitty had displayed an exit strategy through the open window of the apartment, and had not stopped running for three floors downwards, we counted my wounds. I was really well protected, or at least I thought that, , but I still needed fourteen stitches in the armpit area, and had a heavy blood loss.

But the kitty was very clean, did not show up for three days, and leaves the room in panic if I show up. If that relates to me using the same shampoo I used back then?

I guess the next time is toilet bowl time…