Trippin Out – My Magic Mushroom Cat

The cat hissed and spat.  Its fur stuck out at all angles making it look like frayed snowball.  Malicious, narrow, green eyes stared out from the centre of the white fur ball.  Claws extended, it started to slowly stalk me.  Mahla, queen of scaredy cats, had turned into a growling, yowling feline fury – and she was after me.  Calling her name had no effect whatsoever.  In fact it incited her further.  She crouched low, wiggled her backside and got ready to pounce.  Brain tumour I thought, as I bolted out the front door and slammed it shut.  Running into the pub next door I startled, friends and fellow drinkers as I shouted out “the cat’s gone mad!”.  Panting out a brief scenario of what had just taken place, I returned to the house with half the pub in tow.  Easing the door open slowly I poked my head around the side.  The cat was sat in the middle of the room calmly licking her fur.   What the???  Mahla started to purr  in a “hello Mum, what kept you?” kind of way and the pub crew drifted away making “she’s had too much to drink” signs behind my back.  Maybe I had indulged a little too much, after all it wouldn’t be the first time drink and a cat had impacted on my life.      

I acquired Mahla after the Christmas break.  She was in a basket sitting on my desk when I walked into the office.  “What is that?” I asked in horror (I was not a cat lover).  Emma popped her head up from behind the screen.

“It’s a cat”    She replied

“I can see that.  What’s it doing on my desk?”

“Don’t you remember? You said you’d take one of the litter when I showed you a picture at the Christmas Party”.

“I remember getting drunk, I remember clutching a bottle of Whiskey on the way home and I remember falling asleep on the train and missing my station.  I do not remember agreeing to have a cat”.  I replied,

“Well I brought her in now, at least you could look at her” Emma wheeled and proceeded to let out a tiny, pristine white, long furred, emerald eyed kitten.  She pranced playfully around the office, looked at me with those stunning eyes, purred loudly when I picked her up and snuggled down into my arms, like she’d known me forever.  I fell in love.    

Mahla had an eccentric character but when we had moved house her behaviour got odder.  Often she would race around the 4 storey house, circuiting each room once on each level before heading upwards to do the same on the other floors.   She would reverse the whole process until she reached the kitchen then race up the stairs again, bound onto the stair divider, jump across the stairwell and land on the window shelf.  She often misjudged the width of the stairwell, falling short of the window ledge.  When this happened she would splat against the wall and slide down it, claws extended to break her fall.  Once my ex was walking down the stairs when she took a leap of faith, missed and landed on his head.  Unfortunately she caught the side of his face on her way down – it was a blood bath.   

The ex was not the only one that suffered cat damage.  Our attic bedroom had no door, thus making it  susceptible to cat attacks.  Mahla loved to jump onto the bed headboard, wobble like a tightrope walker before springing up onto the top of the wardrobe.  She would then jump back onto the bed.  One night I was fast asleep when she jumped down, missed the mattress and landed on my face.  I walked into work the next day with a black eye and a swollen lip. 

“How did you get that?” my colleagues asked, thinking that my ex had hit me. 

“The cat skydived onto the bed and landed on me by mistake.” I replied.   I could tell they believed me – after all it was too ridiculous not to be true!     

Shortly after the possessed cat incident I found the reason behind the odd behaviour. Our slightly damp house had started up a sideline of cultivating the cat equivalent of magic mushrooms.  No cat nip for our drug user, she was into the hard stuff.  I cleaned up the nibbled fungi and fumigated behind the wash basin where it had been discreetly growing.    Mahla’s moments of madness passed, we were safe to walk up and down the stairs, sleep in our beds and walk in the door without fear.   

The cat also benefited. She narrowly avoided a one way trip to the vet.