Cracker Time

Any time I ride nine hours in the minivan, I know I'm dumber at the end of the trip than when it began--which is why I don't expect much out of Cracker. As a kitten, he traveled from Chattanooga to St. Louis, 500 miles, wedged into the engine compartment of our Toyota Sienna. We knew he was there. Each time we heard his plaintive meow, we turned up the radio. In our defense, we tried very hard, for a solid hour, including some car dismantling, to get Cracker out of the engine before the trip started. We couldn't reach him, and neither was he interested in any sort of rescue. After much thought, we figured that at least in our car, the wild thing was perched where the moving parts of the engine weren't close. If he abandoned our car for another one, he might not be so lucky. And this wasn't his first engine ride, as he was orginally found in eastern Tennessee emerging from the engine of a car with Indiana tags. Fortunately, Cracker survived his rustic Sienna perch, while the rest of us enjoyed airconditioning. When the Sienna plus Cracker arrived at our house, he hopped down from the still-warm engine, lured with a slice of turkey, a tactic that hadn't worked in Tennessee. We snatched up the furball, tossed him in the house and he disappeared under the piano. Eventually, Cracker decided to join the family. Now all of Cracker's minivan rides are in the cat carrier and only as far as the vet. On those infrequent occasions, he complains loudly and I turn up the radio. As a cat, Cracker is more vocal than smart. And, he is not the prettiest thing. Maybe that's why his journey here had to be so hard, so unexpected and so much a slice of real life.