I lived in Homer, Alaska at the time. I was walking home with my friend
Jared in the middle of winter, in the distance off the side of the road
we noticed a large off-white ball of fur. Not knowing what it was, as it
was HUGE, we threw a few snow balls at it hitting it no problem. It's
head bucked up out of the snow and stared at us. We still had no clue
what this thing was. Then it charged us.
We couldn't run tward home because this thing was in our way. So we took
off to our left up the nearest drive way.
The damn sheep caught up with us about 15 feet up the drive way. It was
Rocky, the aptelly named juggernaut sheep of death. Rocky is a entire
different story in himself seeing as he attempted to jump a barbed wire
fence three years earlier and snagged one of his testicles on the fence.
Needless to say, he was the amazing one balled sheep after that, I must
say the look on his face was priceless, I've never seen an animal say,
"Oh Shit" before untill then. But anyway, he was eternaly pissed off.
Forever. No way around it. Not to mention that pelting him with snow
balls didn't make him much happier!
So he lights into us and starts head butting, biting, kicking however he
can inflict pain and misery on our bodies. There was NO way we could run
up this driveway and escape his wrath with-out hazard so we started throwing
everything we were holding from school at his head. First to go was
Jareds' drum sticks which haplessly bounced from his head to the ground.
They were followed by my new "Trapper-Keeper" which was trampled under
hoof. All of our text books flowed from our arms and backpacks gliding
through the air, propelled only by our cursing and cries of pain.
Our strength was failing at last tward the end of the half mile drive way.
We gave a final push of energy and dived for the over hanging porch. We
pulled ourselves up onto the floor of the porch. We were greeted by the
head of the house who laughed at us when we told him about the liquid
death sheep, he showed us that Rocky was a little dumb by shattering a
two by four over his head, the sheep didn't flinch.
Next thing I knew as I stood licking my wounds and field dressing my
multiple cuts and bruises I felt a "thud" on my leg, I looked down
and it was a cute small kitten head-butting my
leg. I picked him up and started to pet him, he instantly clawed me on
my chin and through the tears of pain, I saw that it was a true bonding
experience, a bond of blood. I asked if I could take him home, they said
sure. I bled, I mean walked home and asked my mom, she said sure.
We later inquired into the head-butting that MerPaS had
exhibited from then on and why his meows came out like Baaaaa, we
were informed that MerPaS' mother had been killed by a
car, he was to young to be taken from his mother, so he identified to the
sheep as his mother. The sheep I am guessing didn't like
MerPaS to much and head butted him like crazy.
MerPaS took this as a sign of love and compassion. He
still headbutts but his meow has returned to what it should be, like a
normal cat... Like MerPaS is normal, eyeah right.
The rest is history.
MerPaS was not alwayz his name, it used to be -Merlin-.
Back when we lived in Homer Alaska MerPaS was running
around up stairs.
Now I should explain about the layout of our house at this time. It has
alot to do with the story. First off the house was two stories, the
front room had a vaulted ceiling that went all the way to the roof
upwards. Also in the front room were stairs up to a short landing that
led into the master bedroom. These were not normal stairs. The object
from which the stairs were protruding was a large tree. Dead, but it was
still a HUGE tree, it had been skinned and treated and now was the
main ridge pole of the house. The stairs were large boards (approx:
4x12's) that stuck out of the main ridge pole in a circular fashion going
around the tree while going upwards.
I should also let you know that MerPaS had a habit that
we didn't know at the time untill this story unfolded...
I heard him streaking around upstairs and then heard him dash out onto
the landing... He wasn't slowing down and the landing was about 14 feet
above the ground so I sat up just in time to take the brunt of the 25
pound cat full on, on my crotch. ***SLAM*** The only word I was able to
mutter was MerPaS. So it stuck for his name.
What he did was run like mad out of my moms room, out onto the landing
and then hit maybe the first one or two stairs then the stairs were busy
curving down around out of the way. MerPaS' momentum,
carried him off of the stairs and into the air, he would fly through the
air for a second or two bounce on his side off of the couch and then race
up the stairs and repeat over and over...
This was always a good trick when people didn't know about it and he was
feeling frisky, I would sit on the floor and offer them the couch.
The Origin
His Name
The Origin of MerPaS:
His Name: