My soggy moggy
Wednesday 1st April 2009
Talk about cheeky. In the year we'd had her, Measha the cat had been in non-stop trouble. 'What on earth's she doing now?' I'd groan whenever I heard a commotion. 'Teasing Fidget,' my daughter, Madison, 12, would laugh. Fidget, 8, was our dog and one of Measha's favourite targets. My husband, Rich, 36, and I had only agreed to get Measha from Cats Protection on the understanding that Madison would take total care of her. We thought it would help her and our other kids, Tiegan, 10, Lottie, 3, and Freddie, 15 weeks, to learn some responsibility.
Only Measha had turned out to be quite a handful. Over the past year, she'd lost 12 safety collars, been stuck up a tree and left Fidget and Lucky the rabbit wondering what on earth had hit them. And me for that matter. So today, with Madison out at a friend's place and the other children all tucked up in bed, I made the most of the peace and quiet and put a load of washing on. 'Great machine, that,' Rich smiled, patting our new Dyson double-barrelled washer. 'It does the job,' I shrugged, unable to get excited about a washing machine. After I'd programmed it onto a 40-degree colour wash, we slumped in front of the telly to watch EastEnders.
Half-an-hour later, I went back into the kitchen to put the kettle on. I haven't seen Measha for ages, I thought to myself. For the past few days, we'd had to shut her in the kitchen because of decorating work we were doing in the house. The kitchen door had been shut, so she should have still been in there, but she was nowhere to be seen.'Rich, have you seen Measha?' I shouted. 'Nope,' he replied. I looked behind the fridge, on top of the cupboards, everywhere. Then the awful realisation hit me. 'There's only one other place she could be,' I gasped. The washing machine!
It was half-an-hour into the cycle and whirring around like crazy. 'Rich!' I screamed, as I raced over to the machine. 'Come quick.' I turned it off and stood there, heart racing, as we waited for the safety catch to let us open the door. 'I can't look!' I cried, turning away. Rich bent down and went quiet for a moment. 'Here she is,' he said. I turned around to see him pulling a wet, lifeless mass of black fur out of the drum.
'What are we going to tell Madison?' I whispered, tears streaming down my face. Rich stroked the wet fur, blinking back the tears… Suddenly, Measha's eyes fluttered open. 'She's alive!' I cried. I grabbed a tea towel and gently dried her. Then we laid her down in front of the fireplace. 'Please let her be OK,' I prayed. A few minutes later, Measha got up and started running around the living room as if nothing had happened. 'She seems perfectly OK,' I gasped, shocked. Madison was furious when we told her what had happened later that night. And quite rightly so. I should have checked the machine before putting the wash on.
But oddly, instead of scaring her off, Measha's experience has made her love water. Whenever I put the machine on, she tries to climb in, and whenever she hears a tap going, she comes running. I've lost count of the number of times she's climbed into the bath with me, too. But there's no way we're ever going to let her in that washing machine again.