I grew up in Seattle, so I grew up with some interesting slang words in my vocabulary. One of these words is scrub. It’s used as a noun, and is definitely not the best thing someone could use to refer to you. I don’t know how I would really define it. . . For example, if a girl is always leaching off her friends for stuff, that chica could be called a scrub. Or if a guy just didn’t take care of his appearance at all, that dude could be called a scrub. It’s rather demeaning and, thankfully, I had mostly relinquished the use of this word since high school. Until recently.
You see, there’s this cat. I think he (I have no idea what the cat’s gender is, but using “it” just seems too inhumane, even for me) somehow belongs to the neighbors upstairs, but I’m not entirely sure. This cat tries to get into my apartment any way he can. If the door is open for a moment, in he darts. When I’m walking inside I sometimes have to hurry to close the door so he can’t get his grubby little paws inside my door. I purposely have never fed nor shown any affection to him because I know that cats have a tendency to keep coming back around, expecting more and more. So I really don’t know why he singles me out. Maybe he's looking for a bromance, I dunno. Anyway, since the shameless direct approach has failed him so many times, this creature has since resorted to the shameless begging approach. He sits right outside my bedroom window and meows incessantly at all hours of the day and night. Shameless, absolutely shameless. Scrubs are also shameless. Therefore, I have come to refer to this feline as Scrub.
For the last couple months I’ve been patient with Scrub. I’ve looked at the cat with some sort of disdain (I’m a clean freak, so having an unwanted intruder in the form of a dirty cat doesn’t exactly make me all happy and junk), but I’ve come to view this whole situation as a great way for me to develop more patience. But last night the situation reached the tipping point.
Yesterday was the first hot day we’ve had in Idaho Falls so far this year, so I proceeded to keep my bedroom window open all night since my place lacks air conditioning. Well, all last night and early this morning Scrub was doing his crazy meow thing. I tried to go back to sleep, but to no avail. Sometime around 5:00 a.m. I finally closed my window. Along with the noise emanating from my oscillating fan, I was successful at blocking out Scrub’s American Idol audition. But come July, I won’t really be able to just close my window, so something has to give. And here’s where I’d like to hear from you – what do you think I should do? I have a list of ideas I came up with from some of my coworkers. Naturally, some are simply illegal and I would. . . never. . . even. . . consider. . . those. . . options. Right. Anyway, feel free to chime in!
Ideas for how I should handle Scrub:
• Talk to the neighbors I suspect own the feline (I don't have much hope for this option, seeing how having pets indoors would be a breach of the rental contract)
• BB gun
• Paintball gun
• Real gun
• Baseball bat
• Slingshot
• Bucket of water
• Super soaker
• Super soaker with some kind of homemade mace concoction
• Brick
• Call animal control
• And of course the stereotypical boot thrown while muttering some kind of impolite phrase
• Any other ideas?
