The Children's Kitchenette and the Cat

I grew up in a small, tight-knit neighborhood with a local Catholic school most kids went to. Through this connection, my brother joined a Boy Scouts Troop. I think they're called "Den Leaders" or "Pack Masters" or whatever code for guys who molest small boys.

This Den Leader hosted his troop meetings in his fancy basement or something. It may come as a surprise, but I was a weird child--sorry to shock anyone. My mother was always trying to pawn me off on people (as most mothers do, no judgment), so she sent me to the Boy Scout pack troop because Den Leader also had a daughter a year or two older than me.

As a boy stuck in a girl's body at that age (I blame it on having an older brother for a role model), I desperately wanted to go to the Masonic-Temple-In-Training meeting. No, I was sent upstairs to the girl's bedroom to play with the kitchenette. She didn't like me, and she generally snubbed me at school--like pretty much everyone else anyway.

We played fried fake eggs, we made fake hamburgers, we had “lunch” together, but I spent most of the luncheon conversation begging her for us to sneak to the basement. They had her a lot more house-broken than me and she refused. “Boy Scouts is for the boys” she informed me sternly.

Their giantly overfed ginger tabby wandered in, and I was thrilled. My daddy didn't let us have pets, and boy I wanted to play with that tabby so bad. She said that he was mean and I shouldn't mess with him, but like that was going to stop me, it sounded like an invitation for mayhem of course.

Suddenly! I had a brilliant idea! "Let's put the tabby in the refrigerator!" Oh my god, I was SO overwhelmed at my genius! Cat + fiber-board fridge = Pure. Entertainment.

She begged me not to, and I begged her to help me catch the cat. Brainless girl refused.

I caught fat ginger tabby by leaning against the door so that it could not escape and grabbed it in a way that was probably hideously torturous. I shoved it in the top shelf of the fridge and closed the doors. "Ha-ha! the cat's in the fridge!" It howled and hissed and scrambled and made a ruckus, torture time over.

The doors to the fridge wouldn't open. At all. Despite both of us tugging and pulling and warping the flimsy fridge, that ginger was stuck for life.

The clearly upset the completely unadventurous and unimaginative crying girl ran wailing in tears to her mother.

I don't know what happened in the kitchen. My mom came to the bedroom red-faced with clenched teeth and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me down the steps to the front door. My brother, not grabbed, was also red-faced and maybe choking back tears of embarrassment, and we all hustled out the door. I was completely confused. I just stuck a cat in a fridge, seemed like fun. I knew about power tools, and I figured once that troop thingy was over, her dad would just come up with a drill and use a screw attachment to reverse screw off the hinges to the door. I mean, that seemed like what I would do, right?

 I always wondered why I was never invited back and my brother quit Boy Scouts.