Bad Call, Good Cat

"You’re knitting!" K. yelled at me once, while we watched an oHIo State football game. OSU was losing. K. paced the living room waving his arms and shouting imprecations while I calmly worked on a hat for my grandmother and ignored him.

The best way to spend a Sunday is to watch football, cat at side, needles clicking away. While I watch football and like football, I rarely get upset or bent out of shape over football. I don’t usually yell like K. or have to go down to the basement to hit the punching bag, like my dad and uncle used to do back in the day.

So even though the Black and Gold’s dominant lead slowly leached away during the fourth quarter, I kept turning the heel of a sock.

Then, with a little over five minutes left in the quarter, Peyton Manning threw a long pass. Steelers safety Troy Polamalu had staked out the Colts’ passing lanes all day. This time, the ball hit Polamalu right on the numbers.

He got both his hands on it - interception!
He fell, rolled over twice, started to rise, and the ball squirted free - fumble!
He fell on it - recovered!
"Woo!" I hooted and rubbed Sylvie’s head. Sylvie purred.

The Colts challenged the ruling on the field, claiming Polamalu didn’t have possession of the ball. Replay showed he clearly did, then lost the ball after he was down. I thought so. The sportscasters thought so. I’m sure Troy Polamalu thought so. For something so clear-cut, the review took a long time. Tension mounted.

The officials didn’t think so. They reversed the ruling and called it an incomplete pass.

The RCA Dome in Indianapolis erupted and so did millions of Steeler fans across the nation. "Bullshit!" I yelled, throwing the sock on the floor. The recliner bumped against the wall as I ejected from it. "That’s a bad call! Bad call!"

Sylvie jumped off the chair, flattened herself against the floor, and slunk off towards the bedroom. As I looked at her I realized "Bad call" sounds a lot like "Bad cat." "Bad" alone is enough to stop her in her tracks. Or get down from the table. Or get out of the bathroom sink.

"It’s okay, kitty, I don’t mean you," I said. She turned and searched me with luminous green eyes. "Bad cat? What’d I do?" "C’mon, you’re a good kitty." I patted my leg for her to come, and she did, and we went to the kitchen and I gave her a little snack and a back rub, telling her all the while she’s a good kitty.

I returned to the living room and fumed as the Colts drove down field and scored a touchdown. I picked up the sock and resumed knitting. My mood brightened considerably a few minutes later, when the Colts turned it over on downs deep in their own territory. Pittsburgh was still winning. Time was running short. They had a chance to score and put the game away. Sylvie twined around my ankles and I picked her up as the Steelers’ offense lined up. She leaned into my shoulder and purred as Jerome "The Bus" Bettis spun towards a touchdown.

"Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!" I wailed, the pitch of my howl arcing with the ball as it shot out of Bettis’s grasp, propelled by a defensive player’s helmet. I slumped to my knees in disbelief. Sylvie dug her claws into my arm as she made her escape from the clutches of the crazy person who had invaded her caretaker’s body.

The Colts’ kicker trotted out for the field goal attempt. "Miss it, miss it, miss it, miss it," I chanted, pounding on the floor. Sylvie watched me, wide-eyed, from the doorway.

He missed it.

All is quiet now. Sylvie naps next to me on the chair. I am apparently forgiven my transgressions. The yarn is in its basket and the cat treats are on the shelf, waiting for next week’s conference play-off game against the Denver Broncos.