Attack!

Ever since we adopted our feisty, little kitten, Frankie Pandora Pickles Henderson-Webber, the word “feral” is on my mind. Frankie is not entirely untamed: She snuggles when she wants to. She has a natural curiosity about the toilet bowl. She eats and drinks out of the dish. She poops in the poop box. And on rare occasions, she even leaves our older, lazy cat, Mr. Leo, alone.
But other than that... I think she is merely one level of refinement above an alley cat with ruffled fur and a lust for blood. I have scratches covering my ams. To avoid catching anything from my massage clients, I have taken to whitewashing my arms with New Skin. New Skin is awesome, but when a person washes her hands as often as I do in my line of work, New Skin starts to flake off, and then I really look like I have something wrong with me.
But in any case, I've been analyzing what it would mean to be a feral person. Wild. Ravenous.
On a quasi-related note, I saw this one YouTube video where a crack addict was tethered to a post (he complied completely at the time). His crack stash was placed just out of the man's reach. The video was edited to make the hours look like moments. I watched as this man came down. He did everything but chew his own leg off in attempts to get the drugs. He begged and pleaded and stretched himself as far as his limbs would allow until he was laying with his belly flat on the pavement. This video was suggested to me by a friend who thought I'd think it was funny since the tethered man was reminiscent of a more hyper-active Chris Tucker. And believe me, I love Chris Tucker. But this just wasn't an amusing video. I felt really sad afterward. I couldn't figure out if this person was feral or just ill. In any case, I hope what you young and impressionable readers take away from this anecdote is steal cars, get in bar fights, cheat on your significant other with his or her best friend if you have to, but please don't do any of the scary drugs. Nancy Reagan will step off her soap box now and continue with her fluff article about feral cats. But seriously, don't do crack.
If I was left to my own devices, without technology, companionship, civilization or domestication... No coffee, no TV, not a single luxury... How would I live my life? Certainly I would learn how to build a decent fire for the first time, despite the years of being a camp councilor and the youngest sibling to two Eagle scouts. But let's just assume that building an iPod out of coconuts is out of my realm of capabilities.
I suppose all the time I used to spend grooming myself, doing laundry, scooping cat poop, procrastinating exercise, microwaving my dinners and working would be freed up. Although, that same amount of time would more than likely be redistributed to killing stuff, finding berries and fashioning shoes out of tree bark and my own hair. Oh, yes, and continuously smearing myself with mud so that my hair-free hide wouldn't become sunburned. Evolution. Puh. I have too much hair to fit in with the human females, but not enough to do any sort of animalistic good. I'm in a fuzziness limbo.
Feral people would not get excited about the idea of owning a heated foot spa to replace Ol' Bessy (my former foot spa, who desperately wants to retire). Feral people chew off their toenails with their tartar-stained teeth. Grrr. Snort, snort.
However, feral people don't have to eat as many Tums as I do to ward off the indigestion caused by the anxiety caused by the awkward conversations at parties and restless people in line behind me at the grocery store. Feral people may have to worry about getting eaten by predators, but they don't have to worry about romantic rival bank tellers or inevitable future colonoscopies or getting cornered at a bar and aggressively badgered about politics. Feral people might have to worry about hoof and mouth, but we regular people have to worry about delicate matters such as foot in mouth.
But the long and short of it is, no matter how miserable or enjoyable being a wild woman would be, I can't run off to the wilderness to find my inner Nell. I have just adopted a kitten, who needs a lot of attention, discipline, cuddling so that she turns out well. So she will stop destroying everything in our apartment from my apple-slice window garland to Brian's decorative beer stein collection to Mr. Leo's fragile self-image. Who knows what manic mischief she could be up to right now?