Chris Muth, aka The Cat Man, is an American Hero
We can't really do any better than this, from The Brooklyn Paper. "A cat-loving Cobble Hill man whose valiant effort to save a lost feline last year was misinterpreted as the rantings of a crazy person has sued the hospital that medicated him in a way 'normally reserved for violent psychiatric patients.'" Oh? DO GO ON. "Mild-mannered Chris Muth was cat-sitting when he realized the pussy had plunged down a 30-foot shaft and was trapped. That's when Muth became a man consumed, a man who cared more for felines than his fellow man, he became… the Cat Man." Sure! AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED? "Cat Man barged into an unoccupied apartment in hopes of rescuing the trapped feline – but his derring-do came with a price. Someone called the cops. Upon arriving, the boys in blue were skeptical of Cat Man's claims that a mouser was trapped behind the wall. They thought that the frantic man was going through a psychotic episode, and hauled him to Long Island City Hospital." I know what you are thinking: How long before this exact same thing happens to me? Not long, probably! "Muth was eventually proven to be sane-regarding the cat at least. Rumi was indeed rescued by an animal control officer after 15 days. But by then, Cat Man had been declawed: His landlord kicked him out, he lost his job, and his girlfriend dumped him." Naturally. See you there, Cat Man!
See, when this happened to my boyfriend 15 years ago in a tenement in the East Village cohabitated by crackheads and a member of the Butthole Surfers, he just punched a hole in the wall to pull the kitty out of there, his girlfriend ran up a big credit card bill to have her dewormed, and they all lived happily for many years.
To wit, gentrification sucks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvH1BZSmX_c
…the pussy had plunged down a 30-foot shaft….
Nice.
Turnabout is fair play.
Can't this be solved by the President inviting Mr. Muth and Nurse Ratched to the White House for a Percocet?
In defense of the NYPD, it was actually a dog.
Seems like a great opportunity for Cat Lady. P.S., my cats have been trapped behind walls and on balconies — on the latter, I broke in, on the former, I would have if necessary. It's scary! Didn't the NYPD ever see the Amores Perros scene in which a model loses her leg digging a hole in her apartment to find her dog?
(ahem, Long Island College Hospital…)
One would with that LIC had a hospital instead of having to drag oneself to Elmhurst to be pronounced dead.
The only part of the story that doesn't fit is that $800,000 IRS bill. How do you ever owe that much money on taxes? That's like, $2.7 million in earnings! And he was RENTING?
Where was the cat detector van?
With a cat named Rumi, you would expect some poetic justice.