Yesterday I went into an outbuilding and immediately wondered if something had died under it. well, no, something had died in it. This is not an oft-visited outbuilding, but I am afraid a cat visited once and that proved to be not a good decision.

I came upon this realization in steps. Mind you I was not thrown back through the door by the smell, nor did I have the urge to rub Vicks Vapo-Rub under my nose. Then, with more light, I found myself wondering – just for a moment – who left an old trapper hat amid the other stored stuff.

But I did not bend over and pick it up and that was fortunate. It was not a trapper hat; it was a cat. And, by now, you can guess it was dead. A dead cat. A dead car for me to handle, speaking figuratively. Literally, I used plastic bags and a three pronged garden implement with a long handle.

It was educational. First or all, the fact that I could do this without running off screaming, “DEAD CAT! DEAD CAT! DEAD CAT! DEAD CAT! DEAD CAT! ” surprised me and actually impressed me. Then I noticed that this was not just a cat that was dead; it was a cat that was mostly hide with no real insides.

This observation did not cause me to falter in my mantra: You can do this . . . and I did it.

But while I was doing it, THE VISION popped into my head: It looked like a hat. If you are familiar with the movie Con Air, you will understand when I say it looked like a hat I could wear on my head driving through three states. After visualizing my cat hat, I remembered coon skin caps. You know, the ones that were furry like a teddy bear. They were made by using a narrow rectangular piece of material joined at the narrow ends to make a circular fur wall; on top was stitched a round piece of the same material and then a ‘tail’ was added.

But MY VISION made me wonder if Fess Parker – okay you young folks, Davy Crockett – was really wearing a hat constructed as I just described. Well, maybe Fess Parker, but I am thinking perhaps the actual men of Davy Crockett’s day killed a raccoon, had someone slit open the belly, tan the hide and then put the result – minus the legs and head – on their heads.

ooooooh, I don’t want to think that. On the other hand – or head – there was my dead cat right in front of me looking as if he could just fit on a head.

This is not the type of thought one likes to find out  resides in the head of AmeliaJake. But here is the real kicker: While I was considering the dead cat/hat question, I was also thinking, “Too bad I don’t have my copy of 101 Things to do with a Dead Cat with me.”