Kuzia: A Tale of Heart, Humor, and Unforgettable Adventures

After the wedding, the guests had all gone home, and our daughter moved in with her husband. The flat felt empty. After a week of moping in the silence, my wife and I decided to get a pet. We wanted something that could fill the void left by our daughtersomething to keep our parental instincts alive, like feeding, training, taking it for walks, and cleaning up after it. I also secretly hoped that, unlike our daughter, this animal wouldnt backchat, steal my cigarettes, or rustle through the fridge at night. We hadnt settled on what to get yet, planning to decide once we got there.

On Sunday, we headed to the local pet market. Near the entrance, some adorable guinea pigs were for sale. I glanced at my wife questioningly.

“Not a chance,” she shut me down. “Ours was land-dwelling.”

The fish were too quiet, and the parrots, with their bright colours and endless chatter, made my wife sneeze from their feathers. I fancied a little monkeyits antics reminded me of our daughter during her teenage years. But my wife threatened to lie between us like a corpse if I brought it home, so I backed down. After all, wed known the monkey for barely five minutes, whereas I was rather attached to my wife.

That left dogs and cats. Dogs needed constant walks, and cats came with their own hasslesI couldnt picture myself selling kittens outside the Tube station. So, we settled on a cat.

We recognised our cat immediately. He lay in a plexiglass tank, surrounded by clueless kittens who kept nudging his fluffy belly with their damp noses. The cat was asleep. A sign on the tank read “Marmaduke.” The seller told us a heart-wrenching tale about his rough kittenhoodhow a dog hed grown up with nearly mauled him, leaving the poor thing homeless.

Our chosen one was a stunning grey Persian with a pedigree look, though there were no papers to confirm whether his squashed nose was a breed trait or a birth injury. According to the missing documents, his official name was “Sir Reginald,” but he answered easily to Marmaduke. So, we bought him.

The ride home was uneventfulMarmaduke dozed quietly under the car seat. By the time we got to the hallway, my wife, knowing my stance on bodily mutilation, smirked and asked,

“Are you sure hes not neutered?”

I stiffened. Not because I have anything against neutered animalsits just that the idea of a cat without his bits made me think of Quasimodo, mutilated cruelly by humans. I spread Marmaduke out on the landing and conducted a quick inspection. In the dim light, his furry nether regions were hard to make out, and his plush belly was tangled with matted fur. Summoning my inner zoologist, I ran a hand over his underside. The cat yowled, but everything seemed intact.

That evening, our daughter dropped by to raid the fridge. Spotting Marmaduke, she abandoned her half-eaten cake and pounced on him. Together with her mother, they wrestled him into the bath, scrubbed him with baby shampoo, wrapped him in a towel (mine, for some reason), and blow-dried him.

Once he was presentable, my wife started brushing him, snipping away the mats. Marmaduke let out disgruntled little mews. I left them to it and retreated to the kitchen with a beer.

The peace shattered with an ear-splitting screech and a crash. Glass tinkled, followed by a wail. I set down my bottle and went to investigate. My wife sat on the sofa, rocking back and forth, her hands crisscrossed with bloody scratches. Scissors and tufts of fur lay scattered nearby. Our daughter and I huddled around her.

“What happened?”

She looked at us with pitiful eyes and wailed, “His b-b-balls!”

“What balls?”

“Theyve g-g-gone!”

“Gone where?”

“From the c-c-cat!”

Im no vet, but I was fairly sure those things didnt just fall off. Especially on cats.

Through her sobs, we struggled to piece together the story. Im a kind man, but I admitthe urge to throttle her was strong. Theres something about a wailing woman that makes me want to put her out of her misery, like a wounded soldier. Out of mercy, of course.

Finally, she unclenched her fists. On her bloodied, tear-soaked palms sat two fluffy tufts, the grey fur glistening with droplets of red. Turned out, while trimming the mats between his hind legs, Marmaduke had jerked. My wife, scissors already poised, snipped whatever was in her path. And according to her, what shed snipped were his balls.

Between blubbering, we gathered that Marmaduke had howled in pain, bolted under the sofa (after clawing her hands to ribbons), and knocked over a vase in the process. Frankly, if someone did that to me, Id have bitten their head off and trashed the whole place. I said as much. She wailed harder.

Armed with a mop, my daughter and I crouched on the floor. Under the sofa, in the dustiest corner, two amber eyes glowed. The newly minted neuter rumbled ominously. No amount of coaxing or sausages could lure him out. As one man to another, I understood.

My daughter prodded him gently with the mop while I tried grabbing any limb within reach. The cat was sharphe lashed out, leaving deep gouges in the wood. Finally, he latched onto the mop and let us drag him closer. Good Lord, what a sight! Wild yellow eyes, cobwebs on his whiskers, and a tail coated in ancient dust. In half an hour, my wife had turned a pedigreed Persian into a hobo eunuch. The comparison depressed me.

I cradled the wary creature, scratching soothingly behind his ears. Gradually, his tense limbs relaxed, and a raspy purr rumbled out. He purred *loudly*, eyes half-lidded. Unless he was the worlds biggest masochist, my wife had clearly botched the diagnosis.

She tiptoed over, babbling, “Is he okay? Hes wheezing! Should I call an ambulance?”

The cat cracked one bleary eye, saw his tormentor, and stiffened. He *was* about to wheeze. I shooed the women away and took Marmaduke to the kitchen.

We shared a beer to destress. I told him how hard it was being the only man in a house full of women. He mrrped sympathetically. Soon, he sprawled belly-up on my lap, purring like an engine. Heart-to-hearts invite personal questions, so I tactfully parted his hind legs. I needed to know if my wifes butchery had affected his prospects. The inspection was bleakhis masculine equipment was missing. I took another swig of beer and checked again. Nothing. And by the looks of it, there *never* had been. On my lap sat a cat. A rather large, very pretty Persian *cat*. With a rounded belly. And what my wife had cut off? Just clumps of matted fur, stained with blood from her scratches.

We didnt go back to throttle the seller for her deception. Shared trauma had bonded us. And Marmaduke? Well, his name isnt Marmaduke anymore. Yesterday, Daisy gave birth to four fluffy kittens. Our house is full of children again.

Sometimes, what seems like a disaster is just lifes way of giving you exactly what you didnt know you needed.