Pro tips on how NOT to bury a 20 pound, dead feral cat

Okayyyyyy....are you all ready for your daily dose of gallows humor?

Hmmm?
Pro tips on how NOT to bury a 20 pound, dead feral cat. Burying live ones is another post....

But back to the tips.
Supply list:

• Kitchen bag of car squished, 20 pound, dead feral cat who has been terrorizing your own cats and has now let go of this mortal coil via random F=MA urban assault vehicle. 
• A comfortably sized spade or squared off shovel.
• Wellingtons or other mud boot attire 
• Antibiotic ointment 
• Bandages 
• An appreciation of gallows humor. 

1. Find a nice bit of soft earth, not too muddy, not too hard, and commence with the hole making. Cheer that your body is cooperating, excelling even, and be pleased that you are able to do this for the 20 pound, dead feral cat. If you live in an area where there are scavengers -- coyotes, raccoons, velociraptors -- be sure to dig a deep hole.

 I chose about four feet down. Perfect. Stand and admire your handy work and imbue the area with a sense of calm and solemnity befitting the sad situation of feral kitty getting some compassion in death, although in life he was a raging asshole who plagued your existence by beating up your pets, stealing their food, and massacring (yes, that is the correct spelling) baby wild bunnies and squirrels and leaving their heads for you to find as a warning.

2. Retrieve from the front yard the 20 pound, dead feral cat stuffed into a scented kitchen garbage bag and place it next to the area where you will be planting it. Make a speech about how bad you feel that he didn't have a forever home, and that he had a hard life, but now he is at peace and will feast in Kitty Valhalla with Freya and Odin.

Let him know that even though you despised him for his assholedness, you respect his tenacity and wildness...even though his aggression cost you many hundreds of dollars in vet bills, and then apologize for digressing. Wish him well on his journey with no ill will. Reflect on society and all of the animals in need of forever homes.
Take a moment.
 Remember all of the dead bunny, squirrel, bird carcasses, Beauty Cat's expensive torn up face, and other shenanigans...

Find that center of compassion again, give a nod, move to step three.

3. Open garbage bag and dump kitty into hole.

4. Stand in mute amazement at the size of the 20 pound, dead feral cat ensconced askew in what you thought was a perfect hole. However, cringe at the fact that you did not take rigor mortis into account when determining the width of the hole. Dead kitty is on his back with stiff little dead kitty legs sticking straight up. yes. Let that image sink in. Yeahhhhh.

yes...I know this is a goat. But simply imagine it is a rather large cat. Tahdah.

5. To avoid skeletal Kitty Leg Plants from poking up out of the earth as the grave settles over the next few weeks, always be sure to account for rigor mortis and make the hole wide enough.

6. Decide whether or not it's worth it A) to take large 20 pound, dead feral cat out of said hole to widen the final resting place, or B) attempt to manipulate the legs so dead feral asshole cat can rest eternally on his side.
Hmmmmmm.
Option B.

Half way through, regret not choosing Option A.

Use your imagination, folks. The back legs cooperated. The front legs.... Oh dear.

Ten minutes of nightmare-inducing leg folding later, try and extricate your arm from the hole.
Those awful tearing sensations are the 20 pound, dead feral cat claws that somehow magically extended and are now firmly entrenched in the back of your right arm and hand.

WTF. Double check to see if kitty is really dead. Yup. Dead. gah. Realize that 20 pound, dead feral cat is an asshole even in death. 

7. Fill in hole.

8. Clean wounds and bandage.

9. Call for therapy.

UPDATE 1

Oh dear.

The owner of the 20 pound, dead feral cat knocked on my door today. She's a neighbor from a few streets over.

She asked if I had seen her cat....the apparently non-feral 20 pound, dead cat.
I made that little tsk sound accompanied by the sharp intake of breath through clenched teeth.

"Was he black with soft grey spots?"

"Was?" she asked, somewhat taken aback by my use of the past tense. "Yes. He's black with grey on him. Have you seen him?"

"Big guy?"

She nodded.

I nervously scratched at the healing puncture marks on my arm.

"Why yes, yes I have. I am sad to report that he is, unfortunately, erm, um, respectfully ensconced in a nearly, somewhat, mostly perfect grave in my back yard. He was hit by a car on the main road."

She blinked a few times. And then the tears started.

"Um....I'm sorry for your loss. It was very quick...he didn't appear to have suffered if that's any consolation."

She just stood there staring at me, which of course made me start rambling.

"I honestly thought he was feral. He was always sneaking into my house and eating my food, and beating up my cats, and generally acting like an assho--"

I cringed. (Oh, Venkman, I'm sooory. I'm sorry, Venkman.) yeaaaahhhhh.
She said, "He was kind of an asshole. I'm sorry about that, but he was also really cool."

Blerg. yarg. blaaaaaaah.

I offered to show her his grave. I suppose that's rather morbid, but I thought she'd get closure. She followed me silently down to his resting place. I sincerely hoped there weren't any bits poking up through the dirt.

Nope. Job well done, me!

She said thank you and just stared at his "area".

"He was treated with the utmost respect." I didn't go into detail about rigor mortis, or hole depth and width, leg folding, and all ensuing trauma. I probably should have just stopped babbling, but I couldn't help myself.  "Um...do you want me to dig him up so you can cremate him or something? Take him with you?"

Yes. I shocked even myself with that one. I knew I could pass off the tweaked legs as car damage if need be. ha! sigh.

Thankfully she declined. She said that I was very kind and thanked me again, and then left quickly.
Good Jayzuss I hope she doesn't find my blog. snerk.

UPDATE 1.5:

Shortly after Mother's Day I came home to flowers on my front porch. There was a card attached:

Thanks for being kind to my asshole cat.

I can neither confirm nor deny that there were monkey sniffles.

I put this here because it amuses me so

UPDATE 2 : FFS, people. Please...I do not advocate animal cruelty in any way. I do not condone lethal measures to control feral cat populations. I do not advocate killing, shooting, maiming, torturing feral/stray cats.  I had hoped that the tone of this post was taken with the implied humor regarding the situation.
There are thousands upon thousands of feral and stray pets that need forever homes. It's sad.
The feline in this post was killed on the road by a random car...not on purpose, not maliciously, not with any long-term plan of eradication in mind. I did not smoosh this cat. I did in fact cry over said smooshed cat.
I do not want to hear your stories of how you "eradicated" your own feral cats.
I do not need tips on how to kill cats.
I do not want tips or advice on how to kill cats.
MMMM'Kay?
And it's not censorship if I don't approve your overly detailed comment regarding ways to kill feral cats. I am not the government. Well, I am my own boss, but you know what I mean. This is a private blog. My sandbox. My shovel.

Now if you want to laugh hysterically from a dose of pure gallows humor then read my blog. If you also have an amusing tale of burying woe from an unintended, impersonal, amusingly tragic pet hole deposit, by all means share away in the comments.