Talk about a cat house
by Todd Foltz

I just finished watching "Jaws: The Revenge" on the TBS Shark Sunday matinee, and the movie really hit home this time. This work of art holds meaning for me now not just because I live in proximity to a beach in St. Petersburg, Fl., (and yes, while rare, there are instances of sharks wallowing five blocks out of the ocean to gobble frightened writers, I'm told) but because I now realize the premise of the movie actually is true.

For those rare few who may not have caught this film in its phenomenal two or three week run at drive-ins a decade and a half ago or its myriad reruns on late-night television, let me explain the plot. My tale stretches back to the mid '70s, when the first "Jaws" movie came out. It was a classic tale of man versus nature that pit a resort town sheriff against a toothsome giant with a ravenous appetite. The movie was based on a Peter Benchley book that, if I'm not mistaken, was so fine that it inspired Earnest Hemingway to write "The Old Man and the Sea."

Well, the first movie made money, so a sequel came along with another hungry shark that good ole' Roy Scheider dispatched with an underwater electrical cable. Now in "Revenge," Roy's dead, his oldest son is a marine biologist in the toasty Bahamas ­ where cold-water Great White Sharks never go ­ and Roy's youngest son is now a deputy. He quickly becomes an after-dinner snack to yet another shark with the munchies, who it appears has set up an ambush for the boy. Roy's widow decides to vacation with the oldest boy in the Bahamas, where she tries to convince him to change occupations. The shark that dined on his brother, she intones, has a score to settle with their family and may soon come after him.

But the oldest boy, who had seen "Orca," after all and knew that only killer whales follow their enemies around the globe for blood vendettas, scoffed. O foolish boy! When will men learn to listen to their mothers? Because very soon a great big shark shows up and only tries to eat relatives of the late Sheriff Roy!

Now, I saw this movie with 3-D glasses on back as a young pup and wasn't scared at all. In fact, I found the whole premise to be silly, not to mention the lack of decent nudity to be boring. But now ... I just don't have the confidence anymore.

Well, sure, I would like to see more nudity in the movie. That could redeem any film. But I know now that sometimes animals can become fixated on certain people.

Take a couple cats in my neighborhood, for example. They have it in for me.

I've never liked cats. They make me sneeze and wheeze and leak from the eyes and nose. Maybe that's not as bad as getting eaten by a vengeful shark, but you have to admit it's annoying. So I've never had a cat as a pet, and I try not to pet them when I see them.

But the neighborhood I live in is packed with cats. And no matter what I do, they all seem to have designs upon me. There are two who are particularly dastardly. Orange cat, a large and grumpy old Tom with a head the size of Billy Corgan's, is just plain ornery. He knows my girlfriend lives 1,100 miles away and that I therefore do not have many conjugal visits.

So he has them for me.

Two or three times a week.

In the crawl space under my house.

Directly under my bedroom.

Oh, um, just to be sure there's no confusion, I should point out that Orange's conjugal activities are with other cats. So far as I know, my girlfriend hasn't participated.

Now, for those of you who've never heard two cats make love, I will refer you back to any of the "Jaws" movies. Just fast forward until you reach a scene where someone's being eaten. Then pretend there's a second shark chomping on a second yowling person. Then replay that scene for a couple hours.

That's what I get to sleep with.

Then there's Black cat. He's twice as big as Orange cat but just as celibate as me, from what I can tell. And that's a good thing, because even though he's not making babies, he meows loud enough to rattle my windows. Annoying, right? But you're probably thinking I'm exaggerating when I say he's directing this at me. Well, I'm not. Because he sits directly in front of my bedroom window and stares at it while meowing. And if he hears me go into another room, he pads around to that side of the house and begins meowing there.

The way Black cat serenades me, I feel like Juliet being propositioned into an inter-species relationship. Next thing I know, the pest will be flipping pebbles at my window with his tail. And my roommate is beginning to suspect something: He gives me funny looks whenever he hears my suitor.

So, what's a boy to do?

I certainly haven't gone hunting renegade, man-eating cats like the Roy Scheider of my neighborhood, so I don't know what I've done to deserve all this feline attention. But take it from someone whose first trip to the beach after moving to Florida led him to step on a stingray: If you must have an animal stalker, it's probably better a cat than something that could actually eat you.

And at least they keep the mice away.

Todd is a good-intentioned boy who's trying very hard to be good, as well. There is nothing metaphorical about this column.

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