My Cat Benny’s Nine Lives
As Told By: Ellie Church
It might be a bit of a niche reference but if anyone reading this ever watched Top Cat, they might remember the very lovable yet dim witted Benny. This was my own feline friend’s namesake. Benny started life on a farm as a kitten name Alister (I know, sucky name for cat). We went to visit him a few weeks after he was born and during this visit he leapt, claws first, onto my dad’s head and we just knew he was the one. A week later we were taking him home.
His fist day at our house wasn’t smooth sailing, by which I mean he got stuck behind the tumble dryer within the first hour. I have memories of sitting on the stairs crying because I thought our brand new kitten was going to die behind a kitchen compliance.
Fortunately this was not the case and after a little while Benny emerged. He was a very playful kitten and liked to be up high. When passing a bookcase or the stairs we had to stay constantly prepared for an arial attack and just hope you weren’t carrying anything breakable.
When he was about two Benny went missing, not his first time going missing but the most worrying. Eventually one of our neighbours from a few doors down, who knew we had a cat, came to tell us he was outside her window. He had been hit by a car and managed to get himself to her house. We rushed him to the vet’s, who told us that he had broken his pelvis. This is a serious injury for a human and for a cat it can be fatal.
Benny spent the next six weeks in a cage to give him time to heal. Or at least, it would have only been six weeks had he not decided to keep breaking out of the cage and trying to drag himself up the stairs. Once he eventually did give himself time to heal Benny was pretty much back to normal, he had a bit more trouble climbing or jumping as high as he used to but had no real lasting injuries from his accident.
As he had become older, like most cats, Benny spends the majority of the day asleep in the comfiest and warmest spot he can find. Some of the highlights include: inside washing baskets, t-shirt draws, and even inside the very tumble dryer he was trapped behind as a kitten (just to clarify the dryer had finished and the door was open, clearly the clean warm clothes inside were too good to resist).
These days with the addition of my two young nephews to the family Benny has become very adept at moving through rooms unnoticed and frequenting quiet spots to hide until the small ones have left the building. Despite this most of the time he is a real tart and loves a bit of fuss. Since I moved back to my parent’s house (Thanks, corona!) he has decided that I am his one and only. Let the clinginess begin! He has become very vocal in his old age and will meow nonstop for what feels like an eternity until you give him attention.
I love our cuddles and it’s nice to have him sit with me while I work but I’m not such a fan of him sitting on my laptop during lessons and meeting, his attempts to groom my hair, and his new favourite game of ‘let’s follow Ellie into the bathroom and sit on the bathmat and staring at her as she wees’. God love him but this cat doesn’t understand boundaries! Still, I would not change him for the world, and I feel blessed every day I get to spend with this weird, loud, needy ball of fur.
About Ellie Church
Ellie Church is a 22 year old actress based between Worcester and London. She trained at London College on their Voice in Performance course, from which she graduated in 2020 with a First Class Honours degree. Thanks to the unique nature of her course she has been able to further her skills in sung and spoken voice, which has prepared her for a career in performing. Ellie is a confident singer and with a love for improvisation and a great ear for accents. Since graduation, has signed with North Artist Management and has been involved in a short film and many online script readings and workshops. She is currently studying for her master’s in Creative Writing at Birmingham City university while continuing to audition and take part performance classes.
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Instagram: @ellie_may_church98
Twitter: @EllieChurch6
MEOWTASTIC!
We at Lucky Pineapple Films love cats. We love them so much, we have our own cat themed store, The Cattiest Cat Shop. To celebrate our love of cats, we invited people to share their own cat stories. When we moved the website over to a new shop, we didn’t want to lose them. Voila! Here the amazing cat stories are forever preserved on the Lucky Pineapple Films website.
