Don't pet the cat, Donnie

A grocery store still exists today at the corner of 22nd and X streets in Fairmount. (Don Dale 2011 photo)

I've loved pets all my life. But when I was about 5 years old I met a cat who didn't love me back.

She was a grocery-store cat, not exactly feral, but accustomed to making her own way through life, living behind the small grocery store about two blocks from my house. The shop's owner fed her, giving her scraps from the butcher counter at the back of the store, and made sure she had fresh water. Her life, though, was spent completely outdoors.

She was a sleek, fat tabby, her glossy coat reflecting the fact that she ate well. She had probably lived there since before I was born, and my mom always stopped when we saw her behind the store to let me pet her.

On one fine, sunny, spring morning, my mom was chatting with the store's proprietor when I piped up: "Where's the kitty-cat?"

"She's taking care of her new kittens. She's with them out back in a cardboard box. But don't try to pet her, because she's very protective of her babies."

As we left the store to walk home, my mom holding my hand, I begged her to please let me see the kittens. "Okay," she told me, "but you mustn't try to pet them or she'll bite you."

The cardboard box was just outside the back door of the store, and inside was the beautiful tabby cat and her kittens, their eyes not yet open. Before my mom could stop me, I reached down to pet them.

The mama cat bit me good, quick as a flash -- right through the web between my thumb and my index finger. Her sharp teeth went all the way through.

My mom told me much later that I didn't cry, but that my eyes got as big as saucers as blood dripped from my hand. We hurried home, and she cleaned the wound with peroxide and applied iodine and a bandage. I was lucky that the wound didn't get infected.

I have been bitten again by animals since then. I snagged my first job at the age of 16 working for a veterinarian. One of my duties was to hold dogs and cats while they were being examined, and a few expressed their extreme displeasure by chomping down on me. I quickly learned to wear the heavy leather gloves -- more like gauntlets -- that were always available. Those bites are long forgotten.

But I'll never forget the grocery-store cat who bit me good when I was 5 years old.

I don't get back to Fairmount much any more. It's a long way from my house on Northside to the old neighborhood. But an errand took me back last week, and I couldn't resist driving by the old grocery store.

And the memories came flooding back. Memories of buying kites, grape Popsicles, Yoo-hoos and Duncan yo-yos. Memories of the colorful feed sacks stacked in a corner. Memories of that long-handled clamping device that the grocer used to fetch items from the top shelf behind the counter.

And memories of being bitten by that beautiful cat who lived just outside the store's back door.