We lived in an immobilized and added onto mobile home while we were
growing up. A roof and skirting were added over the years but until
then there were a few problems unique to (im)mobile home life. One
was that the roof had to be re-tarred twice a year to seal the joints
in the metal. The second was that cats loved to get into hole in the
insulation under the house and have their babies. The problem with
kittens in the insulation was that they made a ton of noise and it
was hard to sleep with mewling going on all night. One batch of
kittens were particularly load and the whole family was up so my dad
told me to get a flashlight and crawl under the house and get them
out. It was about 10 at night but I was excited, when I was young and
my dad asked me to do a job I thought was more grown up and
responsible I felt deputized and empowered. I got on a long sleeve
shirt and got a knife to cut the thick plastic backing from the
insulation. I crawled under using my cat guided radar and cut the
hole they had climbed into wider with the knife and started pulling
out kittens. When I got them out I had them all in a bucket and I
realized that they had all been blinded by the insulation and it made
me really sad. My mom took the bucket of kittens to the animal
shelter where I assume they were euthanized. For my part I felt
pretty dang tough and empowered by my rescue efforts and I had a
little bit of swagger in my voice when I retold my experience of
daring do. I was not aware that in my hillbilly town that saving cats
was less impressive to those idiots then killing them and every time
I told one of my contemporaries they would tell me how they would
have just killed them. There were lots of boys while I was growing up
that would brag about torturing and killing cats which somehow got
them respect from our peers and it made me sick but I never said
anything because I didn't want to be uncool. It was a relief to me to
go on to Jr. High when this kind of animal abuse was finally
considered taboo.
