the Dude abides

I just got final word from my parents that they finally had to put our cat Scruffy down. He was pushing 15 and really held on a lot longer than any of us really thought he would. Scruffy, if it is at all possible, was basically the equivalent of The Dude from The Big Labowski. Temperamentally speaking, anyway. We called him the Dude because it just fit. Anyway, he had many fantastic attributes (not all of them entirely cat-like), but I'd like to highlight one particular episode rather try to explain him further.

Picture it: a beautiful May evening featuring a blooming pink dogwood, clear skies, and my sister in a gorgeous Jessica McClintock black satin dress, the princess kind. Her potential suitor arrived looking snappy in his tux and my parents commenced the Prom picture-taking ritual. Standing in front of the dogwood, they struck a striking figure. Wanting to make nice (or so we assumed) Scruffy sauntered up to my sister. Now, this could have been problematic as Scruffy was known to roll in dirt to the point that he appeared a dull gray/brown color. But he seemed clean enough. Besides, everyone was all smiles with the nattily attired gent, the princess dress, and blooming dogwood. Much to our amazement, Scruffy walked up to my sister and peed on her. Sprayed her. Completely marked her as his and decidedly not the nattily attired gent's. Witnessing this I almost peed my pants I was laughing so hard. Scruffy ran off with the screams (mostly laughter, really) and a clean-up crew went to work on the dress. Luckily it was a very heavy satin and the offending liquid rolled off without much issue. Eventually the young people went to their dance and Scruffy eventually returned later that night.

Finis.