My grandmother was a very hard working country woman and kept the house immaculately clean. She made a large garden and canned the veggies but her pride and joy was a big old mixed colored tom cat , she called Caesar. She always said he was named after Julius Caesar.

Now Caesar was a pretty good loving cat but did have the attributes of a free ranging tom cat. He must have been with every female cat in the area as he was all the time out 'tomcatting' around. This was a great source of worry for my grandma as she just knew he would get run over by the one car a week that came down her country road.

I had heard some adults talk about a certain type of surgery that could be performed on a Tom Cat to keep him from chasing females and decided it would relieve my grandma's mind if I could figure out a way to keep him at home.

It wasn't long after I had heard about it that the day came when everyone was gone except for Old Caesar and me so I decided now was the time to become a Vet. My grandfather was a barber so there were several straight razors around the house.

My preparation started by getting one of these that was very sharp and putting it beside a straight chair in the living room. I then got one of his old rubber boots he wore hunting and fishing and set it between my legs.

Caesar came by and I caught him and stuffed him head first down in that boot. I lifted his tail and prepared to make my incision.

If I had not seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed what happened as I touched the appropriate spot with the razor. Old Caesar actually turned around in that boot and came straight out of it in one giant leap.

He went nearly to the ceiling and headed toward the screened in front door. The screen never even slowed him down as he went right through it and down the road a squalling.

My grandma wasn't too happy with me when I told her what happened but everything was alright when Caesar showed back up in about two weeks. He lived several years with us but whenever we were in the same room, he always watched me out of one eye.

Now that I am grown I know that was a terrible thing to do but you have to realize I was just a young boy back then and thought I was helping my grandmother by performing a surgery to keep 'Old Caesar' from tomcatting around. I never meant to hurt the old cat but guess he thought I did.

As best I recall that was my first time to play Vet and I sure do remember that day quite well.