The miracle of modern veterinary surgery...
My uncle had this cat, he was called Jack. At that time, my uncle worked in construction and would take Jack with him wherever he went.

One day he was working on the roof of a 3-storey house. Jack decided to experiment with the whole "cats have nine lives, always land on their feet" thing and jumped off. Well he did land on his feet, and he did survive, but lost the use of his back legs.

Anyway now my uncle couldn't really haul a crippled cat around with him so Jack came to live with us. And, credit to him, he got over his disability remarkably quickly: he developed a technique of swinging his entire back end from side to side while pulling himself along with his front legs. He could get a pretty good speed up like that too. He took no shit -- he used to chase our (several times his size) dogs around the garden.

Then one time I came home from school and he wasn't around any more. My parents told me that they'd found an old lady who'd needed a companion, and Jack had gone to live with her. Not long after, they told me that the vet had operated on him and -- miracle! -- had restored the use of his legs. I was so happy for him.

It was nearly thirty years before it dawned on me that they'd been lying through their teeth: they'd had him put down and didn't want to have to break the news to me. What a dozy twat I was.
( reallywittyname veraciously conspues lexiphanicism on, Tue 12 Jun 2007, 13:50, Reply)