A MOMENT WITH MIKE: The man cave cat

0 Dec. 4, 2017, 9:57 a.m.

Main Photo: A MOMENT WITH MIKE: The man cave cat

By Mike Garrison
LiveRC.com

Working on your R/C car can be lonely, especially if you continually sauce your tires inside the house after being asked not to, and eventually are banned to the garage for all R/C related activities. I did just that, however, my wife has been working hard to help me create my own little “man cave” of a garage designated just to R/C cars. She built workbenches, she installed cabinets, she built a ramp, painted the walls, cleaned the floor, even helped me organize. It’s the garage I have always dreamed of, yet it is still missing a little something.

My wife, Britani, does not like cats. She is all about our dogs, in which I love very much as well, however, I also enjoy the company of a cat. With three dogs, and a wife who doesn’t like cats, approving a pet cat with the four of them is nearly impossible. Without their approval, I wouldn’t feel right just going out and bringing a cat home. While Britani may not like cats, she loves all animals (probably more than humans). She is the lady who stops in the middle of highway, causing a chaotic traffic jam, all to save an angry snapping turtle.

Sitting in my man cave last night, I began to think about all of this, and it dawned on me the only way that I could possibly ever own a man cave cat is if it just “randomly showed up” looking for a home. I could go buy a cat, and lie that it just showed up, but I am a terrible liar and the truth would eventually come out. On the other hand, we live alone out in the country, so if a cat just happened to wander by, stop in for a visit, and perhaps move into the man cave – that’s not my fault, I’m just doing my good deed by taking care of a wandering wilderness cat, right?

The idea can’t be turned down, because I’m not asking to go get a cat, it just showed up. I can’t ignore it and not take care of the cat, and even my wife loves animals too much to just turn it away (despite the fact it’s a cat). This is a win/win idea all the way around.

Now you are probably asking yourself what are the chances that a random cat is going to walk up to my garage door in the middle of nowhere, step inside, and decide to live there? Slim to none…UNLESS he had a reason to.

You see as R/C racers we are constantly engineering innovative ideas, new ways to “cheat the system”, ways to make our cars a little bit faster, lighter, and work a little bit better. When you apply that to everyday life, or in this case trying to acquire a cat for your man cave without the approval of your wife, you might find that your brain is capable of putting together some pretty genius ideas.

Example being, while being a good husband and taking out the trash – it just so happens a loose buggy wheel rolled out of the garage and laid upside-down. Meanwhile the trash bag ripped, and “leftover food” (actually a can of premium tuna flavored Fancy Feast) has spilled out of the bag and into the wheel on a windy afternoon. The scent of Fancy Feast fish fills the country air, and voila! – a man cave cat wanders from the wilderness in search of 1/8-scale buggy wheels full of all the cat food he could ever desire.

Sounds like a flawless plan to me, now to sit and wait for my new furry friend to arrive…