Damn crazy cats

So, here's a good one...

I live on a relatively busy road. People don't generally drive too fast on it; it's just that there's usually a lot of them. Yesterday afternoon was no different.

So I'm sitting on my front porch yesterday, waiting for my son to get home from school. As I'm sitting there, cursing the rain which I had thought at the time might impact my trip to the Sox game that night, I see Steven the neighborhood stray cat come tearing across my yard from behind the house. (Note: I have no actual idea if his name is Steven...I just call cats that I don't know that...little habit I picked up from a friend.) So Steven comes flying around the side of the house like something huge is chasing him. I mean he's off. He goes straight across the yard...and right into the road.

At this point, I start making the face that most people make when they think they are about to see something horrific. You know, teeth clenched, squinted eyes, head half turned away, but not really because you want to see what the hell's going down.

So, Steven flies into the road, narrowly avoiding a car coming up the hill on the near side. Gets halfway across and seems to come to the sudden realization that he is a) running full speed across a currently busy road b) just cheated Death once and c) Death isn't happy about it and has sent a minivan down the hill to take care of that.

The minivan driver (who was making the same face I was making), sees Steven in the road and lays on the brakes. I do a little mental calculation and there's no chance of a miss here. Steven's about two feet from going right under the front tire of this van and there was no way she was stopping.

So as I mentioned, Steven seemed to grasp his impending doom at that moment as well. What does he do with this information?

He tries to jump over the minivan.

So, picture this...cat running full speed, converging on a minivan going about 35mph. They're maybe three feet apart and the cat decides, "Fuck it, I'm going over."

He doesn't make it.

This thing jumped probably four feet in the air, head-first, right into the side of a passing van. *THUD*

At this point the minivan driver is probably like, "Holy crap, I just killed that cat!"

Meanwhile, Steven is spinning in mid-air. Literally. I think he went around twice. Turns out, though, that he wasn't dead. Damn thing landed right on its feet (it stumbled for half a second, sure)...and then took off back across the road into my backyard again...totally fine.

I was in awe. I actually gave the thing a round of applause. I'm pretty sure that I heard it laughing Death right in the face as it took off.