LOCAL MAN IN NOVELTY T-SHIRT NOW HANDLES ALL MUNICIPAL CAT-IN-WALL EMERGENCIES
Fire department confirms it has quietly ceded jurisdiction over wall-cats to a guy named Catman wearing a shirt that says CATMAN.
Long Island officials confirmed this week that a man known locally only as 'Catman' has become the de facto first responder for cats trapped inside residential walls, following his third successful extraction of the year — this one a five-day ordeal involving an upside-down tabby named Lola, a phone flashlight, and a kitchen spatula. The fire department, when reached for comment, said it 'generally lets that one ride.'
DeBacker, who performed the rescue while wearing a t-shirt reading CATMAN in block letters, insists the shirt predates his hobby and is 'just a coincidence,' a claim neighbors have stopped evaluating critically given his 100% success rate against the department's apparent 0% callback rate. 'The shirt is a coincidence,' DeBacker said, brushing drywall dust off his chest. 'The fire department is also a coincidence, in that they stopped picking up. Call me if the purring sounds structural.'
A spokesperson for the local fire district, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss cats, confirmed the department has 'informally deprioritized' wall-cat calls in favor of what he called 'actual fires.' Meanwhile, three separate households have reportedly added DeBacker's number to their refrigerators under 'Emergency Contacts,' ranking him above both poison control and, in one case, a cardiologist.
