Abubilla Music

Sammy the Angry Cat

Written by Jimmy

A major feature of Six Months of Saturdays is that every song features the unintended vocals of either Toby or Sammy.    Toby is the stupid dog.  Sammy is the angry cat.  And he’s angry because he knows he has very little time left to live.

That requires explanation.    First, the cat has serious anger issues.    That is fact.  He is only 8 months old but he’s a very big black cat and he’s very angry.  He’s lovable when he wants, but generally he yells at humans a lot.  When he comes thru the cat flap he meows his head off and i can roughly translate:  ‘I’m home and I want Kathy now.  I want her now to start rubbing my ears and I want food now.  I know I have some food, but I want more. Fresher food.  Something is wrong with the food in that bowl and I don’t have to check.  And I want that dog out of my line of sight now.  And I see Jimmy watching TV.  I want him out.  He will try to pick me up sometime today and I hate that.   So he’s out.’   This all takes about four minutes of very loud screaming.  On Saturday’s, he gets very, very angry and when each band member arrives.  He greets them with something like the following:  ‘Andy, for F*$ks sake, why are you here?  more bloody tin whistle I bet.  Oh, it’s Ed and the ‘magic trumpet.’  Hurts my ears that trumpet.  Oh, it’s Louise.  I bet she’ll lean down to pet me after lunch, with her Potato Wedge and Sweet Chili sauce breath.  Dear God!  And Rob!  go spend time with your love, Toby!   And Martyn – don’t kick me again.  And Jimmy, oh yeah.  he’s always here.  Loser!  Loser!  Loser!  And this pretty much goes on all morning as the band arrives.  Another 2-3 minute rant for each entry.  I won’t go into the details, but the same rant follows each take of a song and then during the song he will interrupt with some major outburst!    And he’s not ever complementary.

Now, the second bit about him knowing he is going to die is a bit more speculative.  The fact bit is that the chance of surviving in our house as a cat is slightly less than it was for a Russian to survive Stalingrad.   Its like the musicians and small plane crashes thing (see 71 Hours to Monday).   Here are facts:  Joey, missing.  Panda, dead.  Spinniker, dead.  Sammy, angry!   The MIA, DIA ratio, assuming he lives is a 80% chance of dying or going missing.  Now each of these cats was loved and each has a very suitable explanation, that involved a lot of pet bills as we tried to save each.  But facts are facts.  Walking into the house, Sammy faced an uphill climb to survive.  Now the speculation is that a) he knows these facts and b) that this makes him angry.    On part a) about him knowing facts, I can point out that the ashes of all the dead cats are in little pine boxes on one of our shelves.   He must have seen them.  Now I’m not sure he can read, but I would think he could smell cat ash.  So I’m sticking with ‘he knows.’   This must drive his anger.  it is only logical that he blames all of us.  And he doesn’t know the band did not directly contribute to the death of the other cats (althought there have been whispers).  So that explains his anger there.  And Ed’s trumpet?  that even makes the human neighbors a bit mad.

So for you, our one fan (you know who you are), please listen out for Sammy’s rants and Toby’s whimpers.  they are part of the fabric.  And please look out for the Sammy ‘death watch’.  it is only a matter of time.   Like Chernenko (part of the Brezhnev, Andropove, Chernenko trilogy of very old and fast dying Soviet Premiers).   Poor cat.