Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Four

Muffins and Mufflers

On a cold winter day, what could be better than a hot blueberry muffin and a warm wool muffler to wrap around the neck when going outside to build a snowman? My mind travels to a muffin and muffler of my youth, but not the kinds just mentioned.

My mother loved cats, and there were not many times that she didn’t have at least one, usually several. Most of the cats, being both indoor and outdoor cats, came and went frequently. Many are forgotten, but some stand in memory because of something remarkable.

In her younger days, my mother had natural curls; however, when I was about seven my sister Anna Mae took her to have her first permanent. Mother always blamed that permanent for ruining her natural curls and thinning her hair, requiring her to make frugal, infrequent visits to the beauty shop for the remainder of her life.

There came one of those days when Mother went to Dale Munsey’s Beauty Shop to have her hair fixed. The shop was no more than a mile from our house. Dad drove Mother there in what I thought was the ugliest car he ever owned, some kind of maroon Ford.

Someone came into the shop while Mother was “in the chair” (sounds more like an electrocution than a hair appointment) and said they could hear a cat meowing pitifully, though no cat could be found.

Continued investigation finally revealed that the cat belonged to Mother. Somehow, the calico named Muffin had attached herself to the muffler of Dad’s car and received a free, if unwanted, trip to the beauty shop. If the distance had been far, surely Muffin would have been killed when the muffler heated to the point that she would have had to let go or suffer burned paws. Other points in Muffin’s favor were smooth roads and the fact that Dad rarely drove over thirty miles per hour.

Miraculously, Muffin was retrieved from the muffler and brought into the shop, where she calmly rested in Mother’s lap for the duration of the appointment. She had a much calmer ride home inside the car, still resting peacefully on Mother’s lap.

There was another occasion when Muffin came to the rescue. I was home alone with my Aunt Lidia one summer day when a bird flew into the house. She screamed at me, “O, honey, get it!” Aunt Lidia feared birds in the house as a sure sign of death. It turns out that Aunt Lidia was right—a death did occur.

I went into the kitchen to get a broom to shoo the bird from the living room curtains. I wasn’t having any luck, so Muffin took over. She climbed the curtains, killed the bird with one swat of her miraculous paw, and carried it under my bed for a much deserved feast.

I feared the sight of the bloody mess would make me sick. When Muffin emerged with a protruding belly after several minutes of feline delicacy, I went with broom, dustpan and mop to clean her leftovers. Muffin might have been part vampire, for nothing was left except the feathers.

This reminds me somewhat of Queen Jezebel in the Bible. She was a very wicked queen, and II Kings 9 relates how she died by being thrown from a window and trampled by horses. Later, when some returned to bury her, verse 35 says “they found no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands”. So was fulfilled the prophecy from I Kings 21:23: “The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel”.

Though most of our many cats have been forgotten, there are other instances for which I remember some of them. I’ll share another such tale next week.