The "Tell-Tail" Meow

Every time my family goes to Bear Lake we take my Bengal cat, Lex Luther.  He's too high maintenance to be left alone in the house for even a full twenty four hours.  In just twelve hours he's capable of destroying the house, including the toilet paper rolls in the bathrooms.  This time when we took him up my mom and I decided that rather than come back and pick him up after we'd taken care of my grandparents' yard (I'm watering their garden and flowers around their pond as well as feeding their fish.) we'd take him with us and let him roam while we worked.  Lex was decidedly unhappy about this, since he didn't know where we were going.

We stopped at the credit union before we headed over to my grandparents' house so my mom could get some cash from the ATM.  When we were there I had put the window partially down so he could smell outside.  My mom freaked out a bit when she saw his head out, because her philosophy is that if he can get his head out, he can jump out.  She quickly started to roll the window up, which trapped my poor, pitiful cat's head in between the car door and the glass.  He started screaming and trying to get his head out, during which few seconds I was screaming at my mom that she was trying to murder my cat.  Needless to say, my mom felt terrible, especially since that is probably the only grandchild my mom is ever going to get from me.

Worried that my mom had smashed his windpipe somewhat, we took his collar off and checked to make sure he was breathing.  He was short of breath, but he was fine, and told us just what he thought of that incident the rest of the way to my grandparents' house.  Once we got there, though, he really did enjoy himself, particularly when he got to be over by the fish pond and I fed the fish, so he could see them come right up to the top of the pond.  Although he wouldn't get in the water to chase them, he did dip his paws in a bit to get after them.  They never really came close enough for him to get one, though.  That's a good thing, because I do believe that he might have really hurt one/potentially killed one if he did.  My step-grandmother really isn't too nice when it comes to things like that, no matter how cute the animal is.

While there, I ran into the neighbors, and the girl, Jackie, happened to see Lex and told us that she bred Bengals.  I went over to see the two kittens she had, Shiloh and Apollo.  They were really cute, but I wouldn't have traded Lex for either of them.  They were rather more expensive than Lex, too.  I paid 500 dollars for Lex, but she was asking 1000 dollars for Apollo as a pet or 1500 to 1800 dollars for a show cat, and 700 dollars for Shiloh.  Given, Apollo was show cat quality, but it seemed a little high to me.  Shiloh won't go for 700 dollars, I don't think.  He's cute enough, but since he's not show quality and given how old he's getting, she's going to have to settle for a little less. 

When we were finished, we headed towards Bear Lake.  Lex was getting a little jittery and wild, so we put him in his box for the ride up Sardine Canyon, knowing how much he hates it.  He did his usual screaming routine through Sardine, and then calmed down in Logan, but when we hit Logan Canyon, boy were we surprised.  Lex completely through a fit.  Banging up against the walls of his box and trying to rip it to shreds, he was scaring us, so we decided to let him out of it and sit on my lap when we were towards the end of the canyon.  He was happy and stayed calm until halfway around the lake to our cabin, and then he started squirming in my arms and trying to get to where he could open a window (Yes, he is smart enough to do that, as well as open the cupboard to get his milk bowl.  He can also say Mom and Grandma.  My cat is completely and totally awesome).  It was a good thing we got to our cabin when we did, because I don't think that Lex would have made it much longer in the car.

We let him go out and enjoy the outdoors for awhile, and then made him come in and have a nap with us when we were finished unpacking.  The grass was too wet to mow the lawn at the time.  Now he's just fine, but I really hope that he's better on the return trip: more his usual self.  In my opinion, it was all because he had his grandma try to cut off his head using the window this morning.