You probably clicked on this post thinking it was going to be a heartwarming tale about a family who found a bobcat kitten while out for a family hike and, thinking it was an abandoned house cat, decided to adopt it. Well, it isn't about that at all. It's about a meth addict I met recently. There's some bobcat stuff in it too, but it's not what you probably thought it would be.
I was sitting at my computer in my home office on one of my work-from-home days and there was a loud knock at the front door. I remember thinking that whoever was out there must not know that the doorbell next to the front door was to be used to summon the house's occupants. The dog immediately started barking and the cats started running through the house like there was a fire somewhere.
I'll admit that I was a little more irritated than I should have been. I was working on a difficult project for work and it really wasn't going too well. I was hoping for a quiet day that I could use to get my shit together and organize my thoughts before working in the office for the next two days. I was hoping to get some groundwork done for the next phase of the project and maybe work through a couple of issues we had encountered. Because of the layout of our office it is much easier to do this type of work at home because, generally speaking, there are fewer distractions and it's easier to concentrate for longer periods of time.
At work we have what's called an "open office" where there are no cubes or private offices - just workspaces right next to one another. The people on each side are close enough that you can reach out and tap them on the head of you want to. If you happen to have good neighbors then this works out fine, but there is no such thing as privacy. Your neighbors can hear every word when you're on a phone call and they can peruse your computer activity and even your current financial condition if you happen to bring up your bank's online banking site. When they tore down our spacious and mostly private cubes and replaced them with these things everyone was mostly accepting of the change until flu season rolled around and then everyone got sick at the same time.
The real problem with the open office concept is that some employees are not as considerate as others. We have one guy (whom we will call Dave) who uses a wireless headset on his phone and roams the entire office while on calls. Dave will stand behind you with his hands on the back of your chair while speaking loudly into his headset. It's rude and distracting to say the least and everyone waves him away while he's doing it, but he just keeps on coming back after a minute or two. If you happen to be on a call of your own you're just out of luck because it's against our Violence in the Workplace policy to whack him in the face with a stapler.
Ok, back to the subject at hand. I got up from my desk and went to the door. When I opened it there was a man standing there with an empty clipboard and wearing one of those "Hello My Name Is" stickers on his filthy, worn out jacket. The name written on the sticker was "MUD." In case you're not from Omaha, "MUD" stands for Metropolitan Utilities District, our local gas and water company. They wear dark blue jackets bearing the MUD name and logo, white collared shirts, and matching blue pants. To my knowledge they do not use "Hello My Name Is" stickers.
This guy's face and arms were covered with open sores characteristic of meth addicts and lepers from the 17th century. Doubting that he was a time traveler from the past and given the demographics of our neighborhood, I assumed that he was probably a meth addict. He was unable to stand still and his body was twitching everywhere so I figured my assumption was probably correct.
Now, if a meth addict comes to your door and you open it, you may have a problem. These guys are usually pretty desperate and they're mostly whacked out of their heads so they may think they can beat the crap out of you and come on inside to ransack your house looking for valuables. At 5'11" and 240 lbs I'm a pretty big guy and his withered, drug-ravaged body might have weighed 120 lbs at the most, but his meth brain may have told him to give it a go anyway. If a meth addict like that comes at you then your best bet is to whack him with something while trying not to touch the open sores or get bitten.
Luckily, he tried a more refined approach. He told me that he was from MUD and he needed to read our gas meter. I immediately determined that he was lying. In addition to his appearance, which I have already described, our house has an electronic meter that MUD reads just by driving by with their special meter reading truck. In the ten years I have lived in this house MUD has never come inside and read our meter, yet they always seem to be able to send me a bill each month.
I decided that the key to ending this encounter without injury or help from law enforcement would be to make him decide that getting inside wouldn't be worth the trouble. I told him that I'd let him in if he really, really, really needed to see the meter, but that my insurance company would require a release of liability because we have pet bobcats and since they didn't know him they were likely to attack for that reason.
He thought about that for a few seconds and the rate of twitching in his facial muscles increased noticeably. He asked me if I could lock them in the basement while he was in the house and let them out after he left. I told him that I could, but reminded him that the gas meter was also down there so he would be at even greater risk of attack if I locked them all down there with him while he was reading the meter. He would be almost certain to run into at least one of them while he was down there.
After a few seconds he said that reading the meter would have to wait and he would report this to his supervisor for further action. We told each other goodbye and he proceeded next door and knocked on the door of that vacant house for the next 45 minutes.
That was the bobcat part and I feel bad about not having more bobcat action in this post, so I'll give you a little more bobcat before the end of the post since you went to the trouble of clicking on it in the first place. I apologize if it hasn't met your expectations and I promise to do better next time. ok, so more bobcat now...
When I was in high school I knew a guy named Mike who actually did have a bobcat as a family pet. The bobcat, who they imaginatively named Bob, lived in their house along with their five kids, two dogs, and a Siamese cat named Trixie. He acted like any other cat and didn't seem to mind that there were noisy kids and other animals around.
I asked them several times how they came to own a real bobcat but each time they became uneasy and elusive. After several tries I decided that I should leave it alone if I was going to continue going over to Mike's house to hang out. Bob took part in family activities just like the other pets in the house and I never saw him exhibit any aggression toward family members, other pets, or guests.
Owning a pet bobcat had it's own set of unique challenges. Bobcats do not use the litter box. They had to let him outside to do his business no matter what time he wanted to go. If Bob needed to go outside in the middle of the night he would stand at the back door and howl like a baby being tortured. If no one went downstairs to let him out for a few minutes he would randomly select a family member and climb into bed with them to continue his howling until that unlucky person got up and let him outside.
Trips to the vet were also a challenge. Bob was a healthy animal, but he still had to go to the vet and get his yearly checkup and vaccinations. Now you can't just throw a bobcat into the family station wagon and haul him into the waiting room at the veterinary office. Everything has to be arranged well in advance and the veterinarian has to be comfortable working with potentially dangerous animals. Visits usually had to happen on a Sunday morning and were extremely expensive.
Bob was very well behaved, but, just like a house cat, was capable of doing great damage to just about anything. Once someone left an unopened can of tuna on the kitchen counter and Bob decided to open it with his teeth while the family was at work and school. When Mike got home he found the mangled tuna can on the kitchen floor and half of it was missing. Not just the tuna -- half of the can itself was missing. They figured that Bob had swallowed it so they made an emergency visit to the vet anticipating that the can would have to be surgically removed. The vet sedated Bob and took some x-rays but found no can. Bob took it like a champ and never made a fuss.They later found the other half of the can under the stove.
The only other time I remember them ever having a serious problem with Bob was when someone left the door to their guest room open and Bob decided to see what was inside four very large overstuffed goose down pillows. Mike and I went to his house that day after school and we were the first ones to get home. When we entered the house we found goose down scattered over every square inch of their beautiful 4000 square foot home. After about 30 seconds inside we decided to just leave and go over to my house instead. Mike stayed for dinner and we played Atari at my house until he was sure it was safe to go home.
That's all the bobcat I have for you. Bob continued to live a happy relaxed life until he passed away some years later. Mike is living in Chicago with his family and to my knowledge does not currently own a bobcat.