Easter Trouble

My favorite Easter story involves my late cat and took place before I knew Jesus and attended church. My cat's name was Trouble. Actually he started out as my mom’s cat. She got him as a kitten when we shared a house. He was so small when we got him. He would hide under things and attack our ankles. A few months after she got him I had to move to East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania for work. Mom decided (again) that she wanted to move to San Diego, california so she left Trouble in Ohio with my sister. I returned to Ohio after eight months and stayed with my sister for awhile. She made it clear that Trouble was MY cat.

And what a cat he was. He was a grey and white tabby. And he was HUGE!. I think a good 75% of his body mass was just attitude. Trouble was an outdoor cat and a perfect one at that. He could be found at the door in the morning waiting to come in. He would eat and occasionally nap but when he was ready he stood by the door and yelled until someone let him out. He would be gone all day and night and repeat the process. You couldn’t tell my sister had a cat because the litter box was always clean. Trouble never used it. He preferred to do his business outside.

And he was a man’s cat. I would find him in the morning with a squirrel, chipmunk or rabbit by the door. He was quite an accomplished hunter. Well I eventually got my own apartment but Trouble couldn’t come with me. No pets were allowed. It was okay though, he had become a fixture at my sister’s place and her three kids all loved him. He was still my cat so I had to take him to the vet for shots and pay for all his food and medicine.

A couple years later on Easter morning I arrived at my sister’s place and sitting by the door was Trouble. He had caught and killed a rabbit, easily as big as he was. He had ripped the leg off the creature and was enjoying his Easter feast. I was all puffed up with pride that my cat had brought down such a fine specimen. My sister who just happened to open the door while I stood there was less thrilled. She told me that I needed to get rid of that carcass (the rabbit’s) before her girls saw it. So I grabbed the dead meat and headed for the dumpster.

But before I could turn away from the door, my youngest niece, who was only three years old at the time came out and saw me with the dead rabbit. She saw Trouble licking his chops. She put two and two together and started screaming, “Trouble killed the Easter Bunny! Trouble killed the Easter Bunny!” Poor thing. We had to calm her down. My sister, being the quick thinker that she was said that it wasn’t the real Easter Bunny, it was a helper, like Santa Claus uses sometimes to sit with kids at the mall. But my niece was no fool. She insisted her mom call all her friends to make sure they got their Easter goodies.

Trouble obviously jumped him after he made his rounds that morning. The Easter Bunny helper was obviously tired from carrying all that candy so he couldn’t put up a fight or get away. Yeah, that’s what happened. That's our story and we're stickin' to it. We were just glad that all of my niece’s friends got baskets that Easter. She would have hated to tell them that the reason they didn’t get any candy was because her cat killed the Easter Bunny.