The Legend of the Pussy Warrior (Video)

“They said there was a cat that could never be stroked…”

I was working at a small pub in Devon, England, about five years ago – living just above the bar (in a room on the next floor, rather than in a hammock or anything silly like that) – and the building, being in a quaint village in the rural outskirts of Exeter, had a thatched roof… so obviously, it was a bit of a no-no to smoke inside it.

Because I generally used to be up until the early hours of the morning, chilling out after a late finish, I’d go out into the kitchen courtyard during the night, to smoke.

There was a little shed there that contained pots and pans and spiders, and I could sit there in all weather to feed my foolish addiction without worrying about accidentally arsoning anything.

These were times of quiet contemplation, when the hustle and bustle of the busy brunt of the day was over and done with, and I had that vast chasm of sleep to look forward to, before it all began again.

One night… something took me out of my reverie… a noise…

… the tinkling of a bell…

I don’t do drugs, so I knew it wasn’t a fairy.

That left only one explanation…

A CAT!

There was a cat that I hadn’t met!

Now, I pride myself on my rapport with kitties and – wherever I’ve ended up in my life – there’s always been a cat for me to make friends with, and there was never an occasion where I’ve tried and failed to forge that bond.

“Hello, little kittypuss!” I said, rising slowly from my chair, when I saw her walking along the top of the coal bunker at the back of the yard. “How are you?”

She stopped in her tracks and looked at me.

I purred.

She turned in a flash and darted through a hole in the hedge, and within seconds, the sound of her bell vanished with her into the night.

“Nooooo!” I cried, falling to my knees. “I just wanted to love you!”

Mournfully, I dragged my sorry limbs to bed.

The next morning, I was talking to the manager, Mike – who also lived above the pub (in a separate room, with his girlfriend… nothing kinky going on between the three of us) – and said I saw the cat, but it ran away.

He told me, in no uncertain terms, that that was a cat that would never be stroked. He had worked at the pub for a couple of years and had never even got close. He told me to forget about it… to put it out of my mind entirely… never to let the ridiculous idea cross the tracks of my fantasy/reality boundaries ever, ever again.

But I wasn’t going to give up my new dream…

Weeks later…

… well, you only have to see the video to know that I am a man who makes his dreams come true!

I showed my video evidence to Mike the next morning and he actually spewed his breakfast onto the floor, such was the twist of envy in the pit of his stomach.

But he was an honourable man and after he regained his composure, he marched me into the bar, to the cash till, and changed my bar-tab name on there from ‘Les’ to ‘PUSSY WARRIOR’.

I are legend (in the rural outskirts of Exeter)!

Quite embarrassingly, though, there was an old couple in the pub that night, and for some reason, I bought them both a drink close to the end of time (in the sense of last orders, rather than through fear of some quantum calamity) and as I rang it into the till and added it to my tab, the old lady… who must have been in her 70s, smiled and said…

“Ooh? Pussy Warrior?”

I think she winked, too, but it could have been the remnant twitch of a recovered stroke, so I didn’t say anything.

The Smoking Sanctuary