Breaking Down the Audio of a Guy Who Called 9-1-1 Because He Was Scared of His Cat

Sometimes it seems like life is just one long series of impossible-to-predict obstacles thrown at you by a cruel, game show host-esque God. Your kid pukes all over the grocery store aisle, a stray door upends you while you're biking across town, your phone rings at 2 AM and your best friend is going, "Um, I'm in jail?" On occasion, you want to revert to childhood and appeal to a higher authority—"This is too hard," you want to whine. "It's TOO hard. I can't."

That must have been how Mohammed Lokman of Stamford, Connecticut, felt last week when he called 9-1-1 because he was scared of his own cat. You might feel inclined to mock him, especially when you learn that he and his wife just conceded the house to the feline for hours before phoning the cops in desperation at 1:30 AM. But it's easy to imagine him not as a frightened nebbish, but as a man who was just hit by one too many micro-crises that day, and now has to deal with the fact that his beloved Nibbles has transformed into a ten-pound ball of spitting, fanged rage.

In any case, a recording of the call was obtained by a local Fox TV affiliate, and I decided to listen in to see how it went. It started normally enough, at least from the 9-1-1 operator's end:

You can't go in your home? Must be serious!

There are multitudes contained in that uh. A good 9-1-1 operator can singlehandedly save your life; these men and women occasionally have to listen helplessly as someone is murdered. It's a serious, life-or-death sort of job—until you realize that you are going to have to talk some guy through dealing with a small, pissed-off animal with jaws too weak to seriously harm any adult in the world.

Good question! Was it… rabid? Radioactive? Undead?

Oh. It gave birth. This actually makes sense—in 2010, a woman in Idaho was horribly attacked by her cat after it gave birth. Maternal aggression in cats is something cat experts will warn you about if you're planning to breed cats. (Though seriously, why would you?)

The Stamford cops took pity on Lokman, and arrived on the scene in order to help him muster the courage to go inside and go to bed.

No one deserves to be attacked by their cat—but also, getting your cat spayed or neutered is a great way to potentially reduce his or her aggression. If it sounds expensive or hard, call Spay USA at 1 (800) 248-7729, and maybe they can help you get your life together.

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