Let's Pretend This Never Happened

02Sleeping With Bobcats and Other Family Traditions

Most fathers bring home a puppy or a kitten to teach their children about responsibility, but in this household, pets arrived with sharp teeth and a distinct lack of domestication. Living under the same roof as a wild bobcat is precisely the kind of childhood event that forces a person to develop an impenetrable sense of dark humor. Consider the concept of a surprise gift from a parent. Usually, it is a toy, a book, or perhaps a highly anticipated video game. For Jenny, a surprise gift from her father often meant a sudden, terrifying fight for survival within the confines of her own bedroom. There is perhaps no story that better encapsulates the sheer, unadulterated madness of the Lawson household than the legendary incident involving the wild bobcat. It is a tale that perfectly illustrates the vast, unbridgeable chasm between her father’s intentions and the practical reality of living with him. The story unfolds on what should have been an ordinary, quiet evening. Jenny was in her room, likely trying to escape the general chaos of the house, when her father burst in with the kind of manic enthusiasm usually reserved for winning the lottery. He was holding a burlap sack that was actively writhing, growling, and emanating a sense of pure, concentrated fury. Without any preamble, any warning, or any basic consideration for human safety, he opened the sack and deposited a highly agitated, completely wild bobcat directly onto her bed. His rationale, if you can call it that, was that he wanted Jenny to experience the majesty of nature up close. He wanted her to bond with the creature. He then promptly shut the door, leaving his terrified daughter trapped in a small room with an apex predator. The sheer panic of that moment is something that Jenny recounts with a masterful blend of terror and hilarity. She describes the bobcat as a creature composed entirely of razor blades and hatred, bouncing off the walls, shredding the curtains, and turning her childhood sanctuary into a gladiatorial arena. She spent the night huddled in sheer terror, trying to make herself as small and unappetizing as possible, while the wild animal systematically destroyed her belongings. This wasn't a pet; it was a home invasion orchestrated by her own father. When morning finally came, and the bobcat was eventually removed, the emotional damage was already done. She had survived, but the lesson was clear: in her family, safety was an illusion, and unpredictability was the only guarantee. This bobcat incident was not an isolated anomaly; it was a feature of her daily existence. Her father’s love for wildlife meant that the house was a revolving door for creatures that had absolutely no business being indoors. There were raccoons that would routinely break into the kitchen, creating massive messes and terrifying the human occupants. There were various birds, reptiles, and mammals in different states of life and death. Her father did not see these animals as pests or dangers; he saw them as fascinating specimens, completely ignoring the fact that his family was practically living in a highly dangerous, unregulated zoo. For Jenny, these experiences were deeply traumatizing at the time, but they also acted as a bizarre kind of exposure therapy. When your baseline for "normal" involves dodging a wild bobcat in your pajamas, the regular anxieties of childhood start to look a bit different. However, instead of making her fearless, this environment cultivated a profound, deep-seated anxiety. She learned to constantly anticipate disaster. She became hyper-vigilant, always waiting for the next figurative or literal wild animal to be thrown into her lap. She felt a massive responsibility to be the sane one, the person who had to remain on high alert because the adults in her life were clearly operating on a completely different plane of reality. Yet, as she looks back on these traumatic, deeply weird family traditions, she does so with a remarkable lack of bitterness. Through the lens of adulthood, she recognizes that her father was not trying to torture her; he simply lacked the fundamental understanding of how normal human beings operated. His brain was wired for the wild, and he wanted to share that passion with his children, regardless of how terrifying the execution might be. He was a man who communicated his love not through hugs or words of affirmation, but by tossing a furious wildcat onto your bed and expecting you to appreciate its beauty. This chapter of her life cemented her identity as a survivor of the absurd. It gave her a repository of stories so unbelievable that they sounded like fiction. More importantly, it taught her how to craft a narrative out of trauma. By learning to tell the story of the bobcat and the raccoons with humor and wit, she found a way to take the power back from her anxiety. She learned that if you can make people laugh at your darkest, most terrifying moments, those moments lose their ability to control you. The bizarre traditions of the Lawson family were a masterclass in resilience, proving that sometimes, the only way to survive the madness is to embrace it, write it down, and pretend, just for a moment, that it was all part of a grand, comedic plan.

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