Driving in a Car with a Cat: A Practical Guide for the Misguided Fool

Look at this picture.
Look at it.
Take a good, long look. 



Under no circumstances should you allow yourself to be bamboozled by this picture. 

I spent so much of the past week of my life, sharing my car with my cat, and "sleeping in the car seat" was on Donna's list of "Things To Do For An Entire Combined 30 Minutes Over The Course Of Many Days Of Driving."

What were the other 57,328 minutes like? (I'm throwing out a guess there. I'm not sure how many hours that is, but it was too many hours, that much I can tell you) Imagine someone with razor sharp claws, perching on your shoulder like a parrot, and yelling "meow" incessantly in your ear.
Ad nauseam. 
And every time you veer close to the shoulder, where it rumbles loudly, the volume increases ten fold. The volume of the meowing, I mean. Not the rumbling. 
No. The rumbling would have been like the ocean crashing against the shoreline, while Enya sings softly in the beach chair next to yours, and Thor gives you a foot rub. 
I could have meditated to the sound of the rumbling. That's how sick I was of the meowing.

Now that I have gained the experience of a week's worth of driving with a feline passenger, I've given myself certification (I'm thinking of printing off a diploma of some kind, and hanging it on the wall) which allows me to teach others how to best handle driving in a car with a cat.

1. Don't.

2. I SAID DON'T . 

3. Do you really have to? Fine. Keep reading.

4. Never, at any time ever, should you try meowing back louder at the cat. This will only offend them, thus causing their meowing to continue.

5. Plastic wrap every surface of your car. It is going to be unpleasant, especially when the sun is beating on you and you begin to feel as if you have become one with the plastic, but it will save you from the thick layer of cat litter dust which will stick to everything. I also suspect it will eliminate the "cat" smell that I still haven't gotten out of my car (seriously. My car smells like an 80 year old woman, with 43 cats, lives in it). Learn from my lack of preparedness. Plastic wrap your car. Everyone who laughs at you will be crying when they haven't done it, and they're transporting their own cat. And then they'll be dealing with the "cat" smell too. 

6. Do not, and I mean DO NOT EVER EVER EVER, make eye contact with a non-meowing cat. There will be brief moments of silence. Early on in your journey, you will be very stupid and think "I don't hear Donna meowing. What if something is wrong?" At this point, you will turn around and look, as quickly as is safely possible, to find her lying on the floor behind your seat, in a state of perfect fine-ness. This will be the moment she decides to lift her head and look in your direction. That will then be the moment she remembers that she's in a cursed vehicle of death, and it will be of utmost importance for her to continue yelling at you for doing this to her. You will most likely, immediately, regret ever caring about the cat in the first place, and turn your podcast up louder (I recommend the Office Ladies, Criminal, or the History Chicks). This brings me to my next piece of advice:

7. For the duration of being in the car with the cat, turn off your ability to care about said cat, beyond keeping her alive. You've given her food, she has a box behind the passenger seat to do her business in, she is in no real imminent danger. She'll be fine. 

8. The cat will attempt to crawl under your feet. She will attempt it from over your left shoulder, over your right shoulder, and over the center console by way of sneaking under your legs. (by the way, it's nearly impossible for a cat to sneak under the legs of a person driving a car because there isn't a whole lot of room up there, and it's pretty noticeable when a cat attempts to do so. Don't fall for any diversionary tactics, to draw your attention away, where the cat behaves nonchalant. This is all an act, a lie, and you must ready yourself for it at all times.) At the point where the cat begins repeatedly trying to get under your feet, your ability to only care about keeping the cat alive, will put itself into full gear. You will begin imagining the cat getting stuck down there, and never wanting to come out. Then you'll begin to imagine the cat getting stuck under one of the pedals, and you don't let your imagination wander any further than that, because it would be a nightmare. You must become adept at grabbing the cat by the scruff of its neck and gently* guiding it into the back seat.

9. Be prepared for your right arm to get shredded in the process of gently guiding the cat into the back seat. Maybe call your husband (because he's in the vehicle in front of you, with the dog who is more than willing to just quietly sleep in the back seat, by the way) a few times, during those long hours of driving, and yell at him about how unpleasant the cat is. 

10. Finally, and probably most importantly, have a constant prayer in your heart that none of the drivers around you call the cops and report you as a drunk driver, while you are gently guiding the cat into the back seat 20 times in a row (I wish that number was an exaggeration). 

In conclusion. Rather than have the cat in your car, could you mail it to your next destination? Do you have the income to pay someone else an exorbitant amount of money to do the job for you?
If the answer to both of those questions is no, please feel free to use this guide in order to best navigate navigating a moving vehicle with an hysterical cat inside.
It is optimal optional to give said cat the cold shoulder, once you've arrived at your destination and she magically morphs back into a sweet cat.
The jerk.




*Cats are notorious for landing on their feet. Feel free to decide what the word "gently" means to you, and whether or not it entails yelling like Dr. Leo Marvin. I'm not saying I did yell like him, but I'm also not saying I didn't. 




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