Am I Being A Scrooge On Christmas? Or: How I Saved A Cat and Learned To Love Again

This is maybe a bit of a cathartic post for me, but it's something I simply have to say. I'm going to start with the happy part first, and then I'll tell you when to stop reading if you don't want that warm fuzzy feeling to go away.

Four days ago a cat came to my door as my brother and I were sitting at home. I hear this very loud meowing and walk over to the door. Sitting there is a very cold cat pacing back and forth on the doorstep.

It kinda looked like this. But colder.

Now, I should be very clear here: I am not a cat person. I am not an "any-animal" person. I do not like animals. My girlfriend chastises me for this constantly, and tries to make me do ridiculous things like say goodbye to her cat Max when I leave her place, and say that I'm his "uncle." I don't hate animals, but I just don't like them. They are messy, and smelly, and I just don't relate to them in any meaningful way.

So I am looking at this poor little cat who has probably been roaming our very cold Winnipeg streets and I figure I have to do something. It runs away anytime I try to get close, but I grab a bowl and fill it with water and next time I open the door it seems transfixed on this bowl. So I put the bowl on the ground, and close the door, and watch from the other side as it slowly creeps forward and begins drinking.

Success! OK, I fed the cat, congratulations to me, now I can move on with my life. Well, actually it's still freezing, so I figure, I should let it inside. I'll skip over the details, but basically this cat was so scared, I had to inch the bowl closer and closer to the inside of the house until it finally felt safe enough to climb in.

I've now been feeding the cat for about 10 minutes. I start to pet it while my hands are gloved, because at this point I think it might bite or scratch me. At first I thought it was purring, but I realized it was shivering, so I took my gloves off and tried to heat it up with my hands, which eventually worked. At this point, I can see that it has a little collar on, and I decide to take a look at it. It says something like:


MY NAME IS GOHN MOMOTO
CALL 614-XXX-XXXX


I yell to my brother, who's sitting in the other room, to check up what area code that is, and he tells me it's Ohio. Ohio! What is a cat from Ohio doing here?

For those who don't know, this is where Ohio is.

We didn't know exactly what to say to these people, my brother Michael thought "we have your cat," would be good, but I thought that sounded a little ominous. We decided on something like "we found your cat, gohn momoto," and just waited for a reply.

Almost instantly we start getting information back that this cat has been lost since July and that these people now live in Alaska! So we decide we need to get this thing to the Winnipeg Humane Society right now.

Mike pulls up the car, and we attach a little gym bag strap as a makeshift leash to to Momoto's collar (I called him Momoto because it's more fun to say; the media would refer to him as Gohn, and his name is actually supposed to be Nomoto, but the collar is misspelled). I lead him out to the car, but he is getting very nervous and is now trying to not budge. I pick him up, but he gets very antsy. I put him back down, and try to coax him closer to the car, as Mike comes out to help. As Mike gets closer to Momoto he starts totally freaking out and *ZIP* he flies across the yard, breaking the "leash" and running off into a neighbour's yard.

I tried to look for him for a bit, but to no avail, so we go back home, discouraged.

We leave the bowl out in case he comes back and wouldn't you know it, not 10 minutes later he is back drinking out of the bowl. This time I decide to call a cat professional: my girlfriend.

My girlfriend says that she and her mom will come down right away with a cat carrier (I don't know the real name for those things) and some cat food. We try to bring the cat in but it is SO SCARED, I can't stress this enough. We simply can not approach Momoto, it runs like hell when anyone goes to it, and I don't want to lose it again. But I need to attach that leash again, and hope it doesn't break this time until my girlfriend comes with the cat carrier.

I walk out, Momoto runs off, but we've now worked out a little system where he will come towards me as long as I am holding the bowl of water in front of me and moving very slowly. Then, once he starts drinking, I can pet him and he will be just fine. So I do this, attach the leash, and wait for the cat carrier.

It is now very cold out, and I am sitting out here for about 10 minutes petting this cat, and I have to tell you, this is the absolute worst part of the ordeal.

Mike comes out to check on us, and the second he gets close Momoto loses it. He runs off in the other direction, but the leash holds strong and yanks him back. If I could describe the pitiful little sound that came out of Momoto when he jumped like that, and the crazy twitching he did I would, but it is way too painful to even think about. It was really heart-breaking.

"Get back inside!" I yell to Mike, and he obliges.

What makes this part so bad, is that minutes later, unfortunately, my dad comes out to see what is going on as well. He opens the door and this time Momoto goes totally insane. He runs a different way: straight up our fence. He is now dangling on the fence, with his two arms holding up and he looks back at me.

I'm not a good enough writer to properly convey what I saw, but I'll say this: the look Momoto gave me is the most human look I have ever seen on an animal with my own two eyes. His eyes were so big, staring right at me, as he clawed the fence to maintain his balance. He didn't make a sound this time, but his message was much more clear. It said "help me."

A little like this, but a thousand times less cute.

"Get inside!" I yell to my dad as I try to pull him down to safety.

Now he absolutely does not want to move. He sits in the snow by the fence as I try to pet him. Surely my girlfriend will be coming soon. I try to move him from this spot to get ready for the cat carrier.

Well, of course, the leash breaks again, and Momoto zips away just like last time.

This time I'm not going to let him get away. He goes from neighbours yard to yard, through back lanes, and as my girlfriend comes with her mom, they find my three houses down on the other side of the back lane holding the bowl trying to coax Momoto from under a truck.

The story does not go well from here. We try to grab it, it breaks free again, we chase it across the street for about 20 minutes, and soon are forced to give up. No Momoto.

Two days ago, however, I hear some meowing again, and look who it is? Momoto! This time we act fast. I get some water into a bowl and begin my classic hold the bowl out trick, and soon Momoto is in my arms, I attach a much stronger gym bag handle to act as a leash (which, of course, sounds ridiculous now) and try to bring him into the cat carrier. As I pull on him, he makes these horrible choking sounds, and I soon realize I do not have the stomach for this, and call on Mike to pull on Momoto. He successfully does, and we close the cat carrier on him with Momoto inside.

Hurray!!! We drive off to the Winnipeg Humane Society and they happily take Momoto and all the contact information we garnered and move on with our lives.

Yay Christmas!

***

OK, this is the point where you should stop reading if you don't want a non-happy story.

Yesterday rolls around, and as I wake up my brother says he has fielded calls from CTV and the Winnipeg Free Press about Momoto.

Here watch the CTV story:


http://www.ctvnews.ca/video?playlistId=1.1089165


Does this tale sound like the one I just told you? What is the main difference from this story to the one I just relayed to you?

That's right!

I'm not in it!

I'm no where to be seen! In fact, if you saw this story, you might think my brother Michael is the one who did all the work.

Now, some might call me petty. The cat is going home, no harm no foul, right? Believe me, I couldn't be more ecstatic that Momoto (now officially Gohn Nomoto) is going to be reunited with his owner. But that's just the point. I couldn't be more excited. Me.

Because I am the one who was out petting him for half an hour as I waited for my girlfriend to come with cat food. I am the one who chased him through Campbell and Borebank street yelling "Momoto! Here, Momoto," to a cat I met not two hours before.

So when I talked to Michael about why he failed to include me when the Free Press and CTV came calling, he said, "I did! I told the truth! I said it was both us, 50/50."

50/50. Fifty per cent him, and fifty per cent me. I believe he thought handing in Momoto to the Humane Society was part of his contribution. Yes, I drove, dropped them off, and parked the car, and saw that he had put his contact info on the sheet for the Humane Society before I got inside.

Thus, they called him.

I don't know, maybe I am being petty. Maybe I'm focusing on the wrong thing here, and I should be happy. Or maybe I'm concerned this somehow diminishes what I did for Momoto; as in if what I did in Michael's mind was 50%, maybe I actually didn't do that much for him, and I built it up to be more in my head.

Grinch, Scrooge, whatever.

Maybe.

I'll leave that up to you, reader.

And to Momoto, you are now Gohn. And gone. I'll miss you.


EDIT: I wrote this last night, and now having woken up with a fresh perspective, I see that the Winnipeg Free Press has written an article about this as well.
Reading there's has got me thinking: this actually is petty.
I am going to leave my post up, but I think this is what was going on in my head.
I think I THOUGHT the story was about my rescue.
Really, it is about the bigger picture, the wild circumstances about Gohn's journey, and I am just a piece of it.
I suppose I was insecure about my contribution.
Oh wel, I hope you enjoy my story anyway, but I guess we're allowed to be a little Scrooge-ish on Christmas, right?