Gas cat.

I love those two words next to each other. Gas cat. It is just fun to say. Gas cat, gas cat, gas cat.

Today I arrived home to a house that smelled heavily of natural gas. I caught a whiff even before I put my key in the door. I entered cautiously, careful not to turn on a light (lest the spark blow me to smithereens), and was greeted by a slightly loopy cat sprawled on the kitchen floor. The front burner of the stove was on and gushing gas. I shut off the stove, scooped up the cat and stepped back out onto the porch. Questions swirled in my head:

How did the cat manage to get the stove-burner lit without also getting a flame to go? Did the cat try and fail to burn my house down? Is he that unhappy with me? Would he really prefer the wet food over the cheaper dry stuff I buy on sale? Or maybe he hadn’t meant a sinister plot but a tragic one… maybe he wanted to end it all? Gas himself like a lonely housewife at the end of her wits? Maybe I interrupted his suicide.

Puzzled, I went back inside, opened all the windows, fed the little wretch, locked him safely in a basement bedroom and retreated to a safe distance. I figured the cat could stay in the house and deal with whatever fate had in store. You make the bed you lie in and all.

Hours later, after dinner at Chipotle and the buying of several books at Barnes and Noble, I returned home. No explosion, just the key in the door, the flicker of the overhead bulbs and the meows from the basement bedroom. Lonely meows from a  sobered, possibly suicidal gas cat vying for attention and the comfort of his saving grace.

–Grant Dawson