Gut?

What’s a time you ignored your gut — and paid for it?

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Look, I’m from New York City…specifically Washington Heights! Need I say more about a finely tuned gut? Well, OK, that’s a bit too much ego and BS about where I am from. But if where I grew up can be discounted a bit, we can’t discount the fact that I am my father’s son. Nick Carreras was no slouch and no fool. As a kid, I listened to his elaborate dissections of the film flams, street deals, and plain scams that were going on in my neighborhood. I could not help but have some of that rub off on me. But no one is perfect; even the sharpest of senses can’t cover everything. And unfortunately I had little latitude for error in some areas.

I had terrible taste in women. From little Suzy, a sixth-grade girlfriend who incited fights between her suitors, to Suzette in the 1970s, who sent me to the Emergency Room for shots, my taste in women was“questionable”. No, maybe execrable is the better term.

Then in 1969 I was acquired by a grey cat – Clancy J Bumps (the u in it should have an umlaut; he claimed he was of Irish and German ancestry and in the old country had been Von Dinks Bumps). Clancy, AKA The Grey Menace, was infamous for fights, being a catnip drunkard, and a ladies’ man… err, cat. He was the only cat I knew of whose sexual activities with female cats increased after being fixed. I once speculated that he simply considered it a form of birth control and encouraged the ladies on the premise that it was all in good fun, and no kittens afterward.

Anyway, Clancy took an intense interest in my girlfriends, as in frequently chasing away the ones he did not like. Sometimes they did not scare off easily, and life with a screaming girlfriend and a hissing cat could get tense. But after a few years, I began to pay attention to how his taste in my women played out. Mind you, I paid attention to it; I did not necessarily let him pick them.

Then something happened that changed the whole world for me. It was not long after that I had been employed to start a Heritage Center in a small city near Boston.

I was living in a nearby city with a couple of other “Wild and Crazy Guys,” and we decided to have a grand Memorial Day cookout. We invited a huge crowd, and I invited the young lady from work who was my assistant. During the cookout, I noted that Clancy spent a lot of time with her. As a matter of fact, I saw him several times cuddling in her lap. What!?

The next workday, the young woman expressed to me how much she had enjoyed the cookout, and how wonderful Clancy was. Clancy wonderful? I mean, he was to me, barring our sparring, in which he drew quantities of O negative blood from me that he studiously licked off his claws. Wonderful as in soft and cuddly? Not my cat. Had some imposter cat crept in to visit?

Subsequent social events demonstrated that it wasn’t an imposter cat, but my rugged, blood-drawing companion, who turned pussy cat when held in her arms. Maybe I should take notice?

Eventually, my offers to take her out were accepted. Every time I came home from a date with her, Clancy danced around me, rubbing and smelling. He seemed to be saying, “Hey, dumb shit! Get it? She’s great!”

Eventually, the relationship deepened. The cat grew ecstatic. Then I had to be away for a week for a series of meetings, and she offered to stay and take care of Clancy. On the day I returned, I stepped into my room to find her cuddled on the bed, reading, with Clancy snuggled close to her. He looked up and had a look on his face that seemed to say, “Yeah? What are you doing here? Can’t you see I’m cuddling with MOM?!” She jumped up to embrace and kiss me, and I realized that we had a small, happy family. We were together constantly after that, and within a year we were planning to get married.

That was the fall of 1981, and we have been happily married since 1983. She is my loving wife and the mother of our four children. And also the loving adoptive mom of our cats and dogs.

So in this instance, I paid attention to my cat’s gut and found out that he was right. Lucky for me. I took his advice: “Hey, you! Jerk! Don’t let her get away. I’m tired of chasing off the rotten ones you choose by yourself!”