Today is Funny Friday! Today, I’m going to give a story from my life. There is an element of sorrow to it, but the humor involved made what was a sorrowful situation much more bearable.

I once had a black-and-white cat named Minnie. Some family friends brought her to my house as a kitten when I was six. I believe she was part of a litter of farm cats that they were trying to get rid of. Naturally, I begged to keep the cat, and despite the fact that my dad was allergic, I was allowed to do so. She just had to stay in my room to minimize the spread of cat hair. We were told she was male, and we called her Mickey. Once we realized she was female, we made the switch in names to Minnie.

Fifteen years later, I was newly married and took her from my parents’ house to live with me. Unfortunately, she was near the end of her life at that point.

When we took her to the vet because we were concerned about her, we received bad news. I was upset and didn’t want to be the one to tell my mom about it, so I asked my husband to do it.

He left a message asking my mother to call him back soon (or he would try to call again later). Then, realizing his first message was vague and would probably have worried my mother, he left a second message advising that I was fine and that it was about Minnie.

Unfortunately, his messages on the machine were incomplete. Due to service issues, the messages weren’t “whole,” and the indication about it being about Minnie and such did not make it through properly. When he finally reached my mom, he asked if she was at home, as I had wanted him to wait to talk to her until she was. She said that she was not, but that he should tell her anyway.

Their conversation went much like this:

Husband: “Well, we took her to the doctor, and they diagnosed her with chronic kidney failure.”

Mom: “What? What does that mean?”

Husband: “Well, it means her kidneys are too small to do their job.”

Mom: “What are they going to do?”

Husband: “Well, the doctor recommended putting her down.”

Mom: “What does that mean?”

Husband: “Well, put her to sleep. Euthanize.”

Mom: “What? Isn’t there anything they can do?”

Husband: “Well, they said at her age there’s really not much we can do because the kidneys are at more than 80% failure.”

Mom: “Are you talking about the cat or the dog?”

Husband: “No, Minnie.”

Mom: “*laughs* I thought you were talking about Mxyz.”

Actually, that was a lie. My mom was so embarrassed that she thought I was going to be put down that she pretended to be confused about whether it was Mxyz (the dog) or Minnie that my husband was talking about. She had only started to question her assumption that it was me when she realized that my husband wasn’t crying and when she heard him talking about putting “me” to sleep. After their conversation, my mom nearly collapsed into a faint and was barely able to walk over to my dad.

My husband told me he thought she seemed very confused at the beginning, and she also seemed more upset than he thought she was going to be. In addition, after she “realized” he was talking about Minnie and not Mxyz, she seemed way too happy.

When everything was revealed afterward, we all had a really good laugh about it. My dad the joker asked me if I were a goner, and my mom told me, “I’m sorry, Lelia, but I was so happy that my child wasn’t dying.”

It felt very much like a TV-show moment, and it lightened what was a difficult time for me. I lost my mom in 2009, but every time I think of that story, I smile!