Umm, Waiter...There's A Cat In My Food

The other day I was eating at a rooftop Ethiopian restaurant with two of my American colleagues. We were having a lovely time discussing books, friends, and the latest news from the university when suddenly a cat looking for food appeared at my feet. It started eating food I had dropped on the floor and moved so close, it looked like it might just jump up on the table and grab the food right off of my plate. First I yelled at it to go away, but it sort of lingered by our table as if it was just waiting for the moment when my back was turned so it could pounce. No filthy, disgusting beggar cat will touch my food, thank you. I jumped up, grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck and walked towards the door of the restaurant.

Now at this point, I must share some of my recently required revulsion for cats with you, lest I sound like some sort of uncompassionate animal abuser. As a child, I had two pet cats that I enjoyed very much. I would pet them and play with them just like any normal child. In fact, I used to really like cats. But those days are gone now. In Djibouti, most cats live on the street. This means that they beg, claw, meow and scratch for their living. They spread diseases, fleas, and who knows what else. Last year, we had two cats that lived behind our house who would fight each other tooth and nail, screaming and caterwauling in the wee morning hours. This year we have a couple new cats who come by every time they smell fish or chicken. Unfortunately, our door doesn’t go quite all the way down to the ground, so there is a small cat-sized hole at the bottom they can squeeze through. Sometimes when I go into the kitchen, I see one of these rogue felines eating the food out of our trash. Or other times, when I go up to the roof, I see one coming down the stairs after taking a nap in the sun. And occasionally, when I wake up early and go out of my bedroom in the morning, I see a cat shamelessly sitting on our couch, looking up at me from the cushion he has so thoroughly covered with his hair. We have washed every curtain, cushion, and sheet in the house because of the fleas the cats brought. We have thrown out food, disinfected the kitchen, beat our rug, de-haired the couch, and so on because of these scrappy, greedy little disease carriers. Many times, I have wanted to toss them downstairs or off the roof because of their antics, but alas, the feline offenders at our house are too skittish and quick for me and I can never actually catch one.

So as I was walking towards the door cat in hand, I could feel all my stored-up wrath against cats building up. I was thinking of the fleas, the disease, the disturbance, and my failure at punishing the cats who plague our house. The little devil on my shoulder told me, “Yes, Hannah, yes! This is the time. Just take out all your anger on this one cat. Do it! You’ll feel so much better!” So I obeyed this dark voice, walked to the top of the stairs and threw the cat down to the ground floor below. She looked very dazed and sort of stumbled around a bit. Interesting that she didn’t land on her feet. Then the man sitting at a nearby table yelled at me in French, “What did you do that for?! She was pregnant!” Oops. The devil on my shoulder didn’t tell me that.

“Well,” I answered a bit taken aback, “She was eating my food! It’s disgusting to have a cat eating off people’s plates in a restaurant!”

“So what? You didn’t have to throw her!” Now I felt a little guilty. And a little dismayed that I had unknowingly tossed the restaurant’s apparently pregnant pet down one flight of stairs. And even more dismayed that my favorite restaurant even has a pet.

I went back to our table, but my friends said nothing other than that I was brave to touch the cat because they hate cats. The end. I kept wondering about my rash behavior, but I forgot about my guilt once we left. Rachael, my friend and colleague, listened to the angel on her shoulder and got her leftovers put in a bag so she could give them to a beggar outside. She gave the food to a younger woman with a baby. However Rachael’s kindness was foiled by an old woman beggar who saw the offering and started beating the younger beggar with her walking stick. Then the two women got in a fight with baby in tow. We ran away before they could start beating us. Yelling at the restaurant in five languages, tossing pregnant cats off balconies, street fight between an old lady and a young mom—yep, just another typical dining out experience in Djibouti.