Traveling with Woodstock

I know that traveling with a cat can be a challenge, some may say unnecessarily difficult to do. over the Christmas break I traveled a short distance to my parents house, about 40 miles away. I decided that it would be in my cats best interest to come with me since I was going to be gone for several days and I am already leaving him home alone all the time when I go over to Patrick's house so I didn't want him to be a lone when he didn't have to be.

Life is so much better for Woodstock at my parents house as oppose to where I live in the ghetto. Here in Chico, I don't let my cat go outside. I live in the ghetto and I worry about him and getting chased and possibly served as an entree by the Asians that live down the street. At my parents house, Woodstock gets to go outside, he gets to chase birds, has a plush backyard to play in all to himself, gets to lay in the sun, and when he is inside its by his own free will and he has a window bed for napping purposes. When I decided to take my cat with me, it was entirely to benefit HIS life and the time that he'd have over the next few days, not to benefit me at all, really its would be more convenient to not worry about him.

I get my things together, load my truck with things to go to my moms house, situate my cat's objects in the cab of the truck, like a soft place for him to sit, a litter box in case he needs to go to the bathroom within the 45 minute car ride... I have to keep the Christmas presents in the cab of the truck too because I don't want them to get crushed and destroyed in the bed of it. Luckily, my cat took care of that himself.

After about ten minutes in the car (or should I say right after I got onto the freeway leaving Chico) my cat begins to settle down and climbs over to my lap, I'm thinking that he's going to sit down and just sit on my lap for the entire car ride. I feel relieved that he's getting comfortable so quickly as I know that he is a difficult cat to travel with. To my surprise Woodstock was not laying down on my lap to be next to me, in fact, he was just looking out of my drivers side window while he took a shit on my leg. I mean, I put the litter box back there for a reason! I quickly took the next exit and threw the cat shit out of the car while trying not to be hit by cars speeding off the off-ramp and flying around the corner. I pull back off onto the freeway, my spirits might have been damaged, but they were not broken, yet.

Woodstock won't calm down, he keeps walking around trying to look out of the windows. In the process he managed to rip open about half of the presents. Four were ripped so badly that they just needed to be rewrapped all together. After ripping the gifts open, and shitting on my leg, he still wasn't done reining terror on the car ride. Next he decided to pee in the back of my car. No, not in the back where his litter box was, oh no, just in the back of my car right behind my seat.

Finally, he comes over and sits on my lap for the remainder of the trip, too bad there was only about ten minutes of drive time left... I spent the next day cleaning cat piss out of my upholstery and washing my seat covers to get out cat shit... Merry Christmas?

It'll be a long time before I travel with Woodstock unnecessarily again.