I’m worried about the cat. She keeps dropping mice into her water dish. I don’t think that’s normal. We wake one morning to find a small, red cotton mouse floating facedown in the dish. We figure she accidentally batted it in there. We set it on the side of the sink to dry out. The next morning, we find another one floating. Then another that evening and two more by morning. I mention my concerns to my husband.
“Something’s wrong with the cat. I don’t think it’s normal to keep putting mice in a water dish. Do you think she’s acting out? Like an act of aggression?”
“Maybe she just likes putting mice in her water dish,” he counters.
I grimace at him. “No, she must be upset about something.
This is her way of trying to communicate. What do you think she could be upset about?”
“That we keep taking the mice out of the water dish?” he offers.
I stop talking to him about it and instead watch the cat for clues.
She grows bolder in her moves. While she used to wait for us to go to bed or to work before drowning the mice, we now begin finding wet mice where moments before there were none. Walking back to the kitchen on a commercial break, we stop and stare at the water dish.
“Look, there’s another one,” says my husband.
“I can see that,” I say. “I told you she was upset.”
He continued on to the kitchen. “I’m not touching it then.”
I try talking to her about it. “Sweet-ums, why are you putting your mice in the water?”
She looks at me with perfectly round eyes.
“What’s the matter? Tell Mommy.” I reach out to hold her, but she bounds away.
I’m sure her hostility is directed at us and is no reflection toward the mice themselves. They have always been her favorite. We bring home a bag of five each month, and she goes crazy with delight, batting them around on our hardwood floors.
And where have all those mice gone? If we calculate bringing home five mice a month for six months, that’s thirty mice somewhere in our home. I can today account for the whereabouts of approximately three. I suspect foul play.
I speak to my mom who says, “She wants attention. That’s her way of telling you.”
“But Mom, I already pay her attention! I pet her every morning, and we play when I get home from work, and I pet her at dinner and before we go to bed.”
“Well then, maybe she’s trying to tell you to leave her alone.”
I cross Mom off the list of people I will discuss this with.
Then, as suddenly as they appeared, the wet mice vanish. No more floating cotton corpses. I watch the cat carefully, but nothing seems to have changed. She still likes playing with them, and she still runs from me when I try to pet her. But she is no longer drowning mice.
I hope this is a good thing. I mention to my husband that I am concerned about the cat because she is no longer drowning her mice. He stares at me in disbelief before throwing up his hands and leaving the room.
I suppose he’s right.
Maybe there never was a problem after all?
It’s a horrible feeling of helplessness and responsibility, tending to a sick pet. When examining an ailing animal, it’s vital one be calm, levelheaded, and not concede to overreaction.
Luckily, I’m one of those rare individuals able to remain composed in the face of any emergency.
I demonstrated this skill when our cat became ill. We heard her firing off bazooka-rounds of sneezes. My husband and I came on the run. I took charge.
“Oh my God, she’s dying!” I wailed, flinging myself on the cat and wrapping her in a stifling embrace. “Dying!” I started to cry.
My husband ran a slow hand down his face. “Maybe she just has a cold,” he offered.
I raised a bewildered cat to eye level. “Tell Mommy where it hurts.”
My husband took the cat from me and examined her eyes, ears, and nose. “It’s probably just a cold,” he reassured.
“We’ll call the vet tomorrow.”
I remained doubtful but the cat was now hiding under the sofa, consciously suppressing her sneezes.
I called the vet first thing in the morning.
“Hello-I-have-an-emergency,” I said.
“Yes ma’am?”
“It’s my cat. She keeps sneezing.”
“Yes ma’am,” she said.
I remained silent, awaiting instructions.
Finally figuring out I expected her to say something else, the receptionist continued. “Um, is there any vomiting or diarrhea?”
My God, is this woman stupid? I would have had the cat at the emergency hospital at the first sign of vomiting or diarrhea. I took a deep breath and reminded myself to speak slowly, so she could understand me.
“No, it’s just sneezing. But it’s a lot of sneezing. She sneezed twenty times in a row. For five minutes straight.”
I waved away my husband who was trying to take the phone. As an accountant he has this hang-up about accurate numbers. I felt it more important to convey the gravity of the situation.
Dire possibilities, each worse than the one before, occurred to me. I burst forth with one nightmare scenario.
“Do you think she might be having an allergic reaction?”
I asked. “Maybe she has internal hives? I saw her scratching her ear earlier. How exactly would I treat internal cat hives?”
The receptionist did the only thing she could do, which was to put me on hold. She spoke cautiously when she returned.
“Ma’am, it sounds like an upper respiratory infection.
Pick up some alcohol-free liquid Benadryl® and give your cat one milliliter per pound of body weight.* If that doesn’t do the trick in a few days, call us back.”
“Fine,” I muttered and hung up. No one cared that my cat was at death’s door. Even my husband was useless, tossing balls down the hall for the cat to chase. She was stoic enough to pretend to enjoy the diversion.
I trudged to the store and came back with the Benadryl®.
“Grape?” my husband asked, examining the bottle.
“It was that or bubble-gum. Let’s just get it down her.”
He scooped up the cat, and I positioned the dropper in her mouth. One hour, three new droppers, and half a bottle of wasted medication later, we managed to get about an eighth of a teaspoon down her throat. She fled as soon as we released her. I went in pursuit to offer my apologies. I don’t care for grape flavor myself.
When I found the cat, my heart flip-flopped. There was white foam bubbling from her mouth. Even my husband paled.
“Call the vet,” he said.
I raced to the phone and dialed with trembling fingers.
I explained our beloved cat was now foaming at the mouth.
The receptionist giggled. I mentally planned how I would kill her.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she said. “Benadryl® makes a lot of cats foam at the mouth. Don’t worry about it.”
“Benadryl® makes a lot of cats foam at the mouth, but you didn’t think to mention that to me?” I wanted to be sure I had the facts right for my trial.
The receptionist sighed. “If it will make you feel better, why don’t you bring the cat in and we’ll take a look at her.”
I brought the cat in and the vet ran some tests. “Looks like a head cold,” he said. “I’m going to give you a prescription for something a lot like Benadryl®. That ought to knock it out.”
My husband greeted me at the door as I returned. “What did the vet say?” he asked.
“He said the cat has a cold,” I said. My husband smiled.
“Not a word,” I warned.
He left without saying anything, but I heard him telling the cat it was now safe to sneeze.
He thinks he’s funny but I’ll have the last laugh.
The next time he gets a cold, I’m going to feed him the rest of the Grape Benadryl®.
She’s stalking us again. It makes me nervous. Not the stalking part, but the fact that she doesn’t seem to be very good at it.
She stalks us right out in the open, inching toward us on her stomach in the middle of the hallway.
“What’s she doing?” my husband asks, looking over his shoulder. “Is she sick?”
“Shhhh!” I reprimand. “She’s stalking us. Be supportive.”
“But I don’t want to be stalked,” he whines.
“She needs to learn. Now act surprised when she pounces.”
Attacks are generally mild. A quick paw to the foot, a snatch at a pants leg and she’s off.
Sometimes she’ll stalk us from behind the sofa. It’s not a bad ploy, except we can see her tail sticking out. I draw her attention, while my husband sneaks up behind her.
“BOO!” he yells, jabbing at her hindquarters.
It may seem harsh, but she has to learn.
We’re not her only prey. She also stalks the plaid cotton mice we procure for her. She’ll spy one resting in the hall.
Every muscle tenses as she flattens herself on the floor, tail flicking. Body rigid, she’s a tightly wound coil.
When the moment comes—did the mouse twitch?—she leaps into the air. We watch her descend, fangs and claws bared in case of counterattack.
Then she’s on top of the mouse, spearing it with her teeth, viciously shaking her head. She notices us watching her and freezes. Snatching the mouse, she bounds away.
“Well done sweetheart! ” I cheer. I elbow my husband.
“Uh, way to go,” he stammers. “You the cat.” He glares at me.
“She’s not going to improve unless she’s told what she’s doing right,” I explain calmly. “It’s called positive reinforcement.”
He walks away mumbling under his breath.
Although the cotton mice are fun, we find the cat truly enjoys moving targets. We discover this when a fly gets into our home.
The cat is all business. Darting eyes, shortness of breath, bushy tail—as she stalks the fly I think that she’s finally coming in to her own.
But then, “Click-aaack-aaack-claaack.” Dolphin-like sounds emanate from her throat as she sits with arched back, staring at the fly buzzing above her.
My husband races in. “What was that?”
“That’s the cat.”
“What’s she doing? ”he asks. “Is she sick?”
“Maybe,” I say.
I question whether our cat will ever get the hang of this stalking business. My husband and I grow weary of acting surprised every time we’re attacked. The fly went on to lead a long and happy life. My hopes center again on the cotton mice. And I just saw several of them lying, almost hidden, behind the couch.
I think they’re waiting to jump out and yell “BOO!”
We sat the big brown mouse in the middle of the kitchen floor. The cat looked on disinterestedly. The mouse was a gift from our pet sitter; a sweet elderly woman who I’m sure had no idea the trauma her gift was about to induce.
“The mouse has a little switch in its back,” the pet sitter informed us. Flipping the switch caused the mouse to move about in motorized circles on the floor.
“Your cat will love it,” she assured us. “All cats love it.”
Our cat most certainly did not love it. When we flipped the switch, a great tremor enveloped the room as the mouse’s internal gaskets roared to life. We set the mouse on the floor and it raced about in jerky circles. Fast jerky circles. In fact, the mouse appeared to have overdosed on some form of an illegal substance.
Not that the cat would know this. She disappeared from the room at the first sign of life from the mouse. We found her an hour later, trembling under an upstairs bed.
We decided the motor and the presence of a big brown mouse was too much to take in all at once. We agreed we needed to “introduce” the cat to the mouse—as if they might agree to meet later for drinks if they hit it off.
The next night at dinner my husband retrieved the mouse and placed it again in the center of the kitchen floor, where it stayed for several hours.
The cat wouldn’t come near it.
I tried getting down on the floor and petting the mouse, to show the cat there was no danger. She looked even more alarmed at these actions. Perhaps she thought I was thinking of trading her in.
On the second night she acquiesced, somewhat, and agreed to be in the same room with the mouse. She sat atop a chair and didn’t take her eyes off the brown monstrosity.
Out of pity, I hid the mouse before we went to bed.
I don’t think the cat would have slept otherwise.
Night three was the same. The mouse was on the floor; the cat was on the chair. She left briefly to use the facilities, as my husband insists on referring to the litter box.
“This is stupid,” he said after she left the room. “She obviously hates that thing. Let’s get rid of it.”
I balked at giving up on yet another toy. After all, I had been the one to throw out the parrot on a suction cup that stuck to doors and “soared lifelike about your cat’s head,” promising hours of fun.
The cat never looked up.
I took back the catnip filled Garfield toys, the cat spa, and toys with random glitter and feathers stuck to them, all purchased in the hopes of enticing my feline to play.
She sniffed them once and walked away.
And let’s not forget the eighty-five dollar kitty jungle gym with carpet more plush than is to be found anywhere in my home, that was a “must” for indoor cats.
The cat climbed it once to prove she could and now won’t go near it except to occasionally sharpen her claws.
We use it as a plant holder.
But even I, who had envisioned hours of fun for the cat that didn’t involve me having to stand in one place and swat around a plastic fishing pole with rubber-fly lure attached, had to agree. The cat was just not getting into the spirit of things. I got up and threw the mouse away.
The cat walked into the kitchen to rejoin us and froze.
Eyes darting, her body language spoke as plainly as words:
Where the heck did that thing go?
She was obviously terrified. She crouched low and peered under the table, searching for the mouse. Nothing.
She slowly raised her head and examined what she could see of the table and chairs. Nothing. A bird chirped outside and the cat leaped, hissing.
“I feel bad,” I told my husband. “She’s still freaked out.”
“Yeah, maybe we should buy her a new toy,” he said.
“You know, something to distract her. I’ll see what I can find.”
The toy he came back with looked harmless enough— a musical ball that played various songs from the musical “Cats” every time it was nudged. The cat adores it, if only because she knows we’re slowly going insane.
She has us living on edge. We’re at the point where she was when she was freaked out about the brown mouse.
We cling to the edge of our chairs, bleary-eyed from lack of The Big Brown Mouse & Other Toys Our Cat Loathes 32
Lessons in Stalking sleep, swatting at shadows, afraid everything that moves might start to play “Mr. Mistoffolees.”
And the cat is laughing. She even goes so far as to occasionally hide the ball so we may experience the fear of never knowing exactly when we might be attacked by a bright blue orb winging down the hall screeching “Memory” at full volume.
But we’ll have the last laugh. We’re going out of town again and invited the pet sitter back. And we made sure to tell her how much the cat loved her gift and to please bring another.
Between the musical orb and the motorized brown mouse, I’ll take the mouse.
I have to.
My nerves can’t take any more.
I took up yoga two years ago, around the same time we got our cat. Having read that owning a cat and practicing yoga were both fail-safe methods to soothe troubled nerves, I envisioned a life filled with peace and inner reflection.
Now two years wiser, I know that people who own cats do yoga simply to release the stress in their lives that exists because they own a cat.
My cat mocks me while I do yoga. As I sit on my padded blue mat, tangled up in a pose the human body, or at least my body, was not meant to perform, she’ll sit beside me and perform the same pose flawlessly.
“Now, raise your right leg, keeping your left leg fully extended,” coos my video yoga instructor. “Balance on your sitting bones, and raise the leg over your head.”
Puffing and grunting, I try to extend my leg. Without breaking a sweat, the cat plops herself down beside me and raises her right leg over her head, making sure her back leg remains fully extended. I look over at her. She looks back and, pointedly, bends down and licks herself without lowering the leg.
I find this insulting.
I decide I need more personalized instruction and sign up at our local Y, paying $75 to have a certified yoga instructor twist me into painful and humiliating poses. But the cat is not there, executing a better version of “Downward Facing Dog” than me, so it’s bearable.
“You’re doing very well,” encourages my instructor.
“Thank you,” I say. “I’m trying to impress my cat.”
The instructor backs away, and avoids me for the rest of the class. But I don’t mind. I am raising and extending my legs at an advanced rate. I can’t wait to show the cat.
I return home and pull out my mat. The cat looks pleased. It’s been a few days since she’s humiliated me.
“Ha! That’s only what you think is going to happen,” I say. “Watch this!” I proceed to execute a flawless “Dead-bug” pose. The cat looks amused.
“That’s not all,” I say. “I can also do this!” I move into Downward Facing Dog, remembering to breathe, as my instructor said.
The cat ambles over, takes a seat next to my head, and stares at me. My arms begin to tremble, but I refuse to give up the pose. The cat continues to stare, glancing significantly at my now shaking torso. I am no longer breathing properly.
In fact, I think I am close to hyperventilating. The cat begins to purr.
I can’t go any further. I collapse onto the mat. I’m pretty sure I’ve strained something. I can’t locate exactly where at the moment, because my entire body is trembling.
Now that I’m on the floor, the cat yawns and stretches, fully extending her front legs and arching her back. She holds the pose. And holds it. And holds it. And darn it all, she’s breathing. Releasing the pose, she takes a deep cleansing breath. Her final word on the subject is to claw at my yoga mat before exiting the room.
The phone rings. It’s my yoga instructor.
“I was wondering if you wanted to sign up for our next series of classes,” she said. “You were making such good progress.”
I think about the physical anguish, and sweat, of the yoga class. Then I ponder the money spent to experience this pain. I tell the instructor I will not be returning to class.
If it’s pain I’m after, I can get that at home for free.
I’ll just do yoga with my cat.
I am engaged in a battle of will against my cat. The upsetting part is that I’m losing.
Here’s the scenario. While batting her food around one day (because apparently we can’t eat it until first we’ve stalked it), the cat accidentally swatted a kibble into her water dish. That was good for about three minutes of fun as she sprayed water all over the kitchen floor in an attempt to remove the food. When she tired of seeing me on my hands and knees with a towel, she finally used her paw to scoop the food out of the dish and onto her mat. Then she ate it.
Of course “she ate it” is an understatement. Could she speak, the cat would say the skies opened and the heavens sang. We don’t feed our cats moist food because I don’t want to deal with half-used cans of smelly cat food in my fridge.
(They might overpower the odor of the half-used cans of smelly human food we keep in there). But having discovered the joys of moistened food, there was no going back.
In fact, the cat liked the wet food so much, she now refuses to eat her food until we pour it into her water bowl, let it soak for about 20 seconds, and then dump it…where?
Back into the food dish? Oh no, too easy.
No, the watery mess must be poured onto the food mat, in the exact place where she first discovered the delightful delicacy of kitty-chow con aqua.
If we pour it back in the dish, she won’t eat it. If she doesn’t see us dump the food in the water (I tried to save time and just wet the food at the sink), she won’t eat it. Her Highness is very particular. And though I try to resist, I can’t stand to see her not eat so I give in.
This isn’t the first time I’ve caved. Early on, the cat insisted on stalking her food. This wouldn’t have been so bad if she were an outdoor or barn cat with an ample supply of field mice and squirrels to keep her busy. What made the situation awkward is that she is an indoor cat, and the food she was stalking was IAMS® Indoor Cat Formula at almost fifteen dollars per two-pound bag.
She refused to eat the food unless we threw it across the floor, allowing her the opportunity to leap and pounce before savagely ripping the kibble to pieces. Sometimes she’d bat the kibbles across the floor and chase them. Other times, she’d run and hide beneath a kitchen chair, tail flinching to and fro, planning the moment of her attack.
My husband has no patience for this sort of behavior. If I dare complain that I am tired of throwing food across the 41 floor or staring at wet cat chow on the mat, I am harassed with, “Well, what do you expect? You baby her way too much.
If you just leave the food in the dish she’ll eventually get hungry and eat it.”
And he has a point. I mean, what’s wrong with me that I bend so easily to the will of a fifteen-pound cat?
The answer is simple. I do it because she’s cute. And she purrs really loud when I dump the food in the water, and even louder when she sees me scoop it onto the mat.
Seriously, how many chances in life do you get to make someone that happy?
When I point this out my husband just stares at me.
“You’re nuts,” is the only counterargument I receive. From this I conclude I have won our war of verbal sparring. In triumph, I toss the cat a kibble across the floor.
Still, I admit I’d like to be able to just pour the cat food in the bowl and move on with life. My husband insists he can help me wean the cat toward accepting our feeding rules; those being that the cat food goes in the bowl, dry, and stays there. Needless to say, the cat is not pleased with these new rules, which she vocalizes loudly.
“Mrow?” (Translation: What’s going on? Why is the food in my dish?)
“Mrow? Rowr? Mrow?” (Hello? Anyone? Hello?)
“Mrow? Rowr, meow. Mo-ow??” (Lady, get it in gear. I don’t eat out of a dish. Re-mem-ber??)
Receiving no response she resorts to bad language.
“ROWR-FSST?!?”
At this I throw a pleading glance at my husband. He doesn’t even look up from his paper. “Ignore it,” he says, turning the page.
I do ignore it. At least until he leaves the house. The cat and I both watch him pull his car down the drive. She looks at me.
“Wait for it,” I say. My husband honks his horn goodbye.
The cat looks at me again, ears perked. I give her the nod. “Yup, we’re clear,” I say. “Let’s go for it.”
And so I spend the next ten minutes feeding a deliriously happy cat a combination of wet cat food and hallway dust bunnies. The dust bunnies are an unintentional side effect of eating off the hardwood floors. My cleaning needs some work.
But I’m not going to dust my floors just for a cat.
I have to take a stand somewhere.
The cat has discovered a love of pasta. She prefers Mueller’s® pasta shells, uncooked, of the medium-sized variety.
I inadvertently began her love affair with pasta by reaching into the kitchen cabinet for some soup. My elbow bumped an open box and dry pasta shells went scattering and bouncing across the tile floor.
I started, the cat jumped, and then we looked across the room at one another. Our eyes narrowed to slits. We both knew exactly what the other wanted. Without a word we went racing in opposite directions—me for the broom, the cat directly for the pile of shells.
It was no contest. By the time I arrived with the broom, she was in the middle of what appeared to be a free-for-all hockey shoot-out where, instead of a black puck, the cat was lobbing Mueller’s® shells. She went down the line like a professional, nailing shot after shot.
ZAP! There went one into the dining room.
ZING! There went one under the stove (Add it to the list of things she’s batted under there never to be retrieved).
POW! She was bouncing them off the fridge. She turned towards me, armed and ready, and I knew I must regain control.
“Hold it!” I command. “These are not toys! This is food your father and I require for our daily survival.” I dangle one of her pom-pom balls in front of me. “Here, sweetie. Do you want to play with this?”
BAM! The cat wings a shell past my left ear.
That’s it. No more Mrs. Nice Guy. I scoop up a yowling cat and deposit her in the bathroom, door closed. I go back and sweep up all the pasta now scattered throughout the house that I can find. It’s really hard to reach the ones that went all the way under the couch.
Once finished, I let a very miffed cat out of her cell. She sniffs the floor where the pasta had been and turns toward me. I watch her consider her options. She decides to play the cuteness card.
Perfectly round eyes of innocence follow my every move. I was just having fun. Is that so wrong? After all, I never even get to leave the house.
I cross my arms over my chest. Seeing I am not to be moved, she heaves a theatrical sigh, drops her tail, and meanders away.
Later that afternoon, I start giggling. She did look pretty cute, happily whapping the beejeezus out of those shells.
I could have saved a heck of a lot of money, not to mention floor space, on cat toys if I’d known earlier the entertainment value of a fresh pasta shell.
My husband arrives home a couple of hours later.
“What’s that racket?” he asks. Indeed, there are suspicious sounds coming from behind the closed kitchen door.
“That’s just the cat,” I say. “She’s playing.”
“With what, firecrackers?” he asks.
“Um, I’m not sure. Listen, are you hungry? I was thinking we could eat out tonight.”
He doesn’t look excited. “But it’s Tuesday. Pasta night.”
I smile and listen to the ruckus in the kitchen as the cat gets off another hip shot. No pasta tonight.
I’m pretty sure we’re out.
The cat smelled bad.
She no longer had the sweet, soft, fresh smell of wellgroomed kitty fur. Now she smelled like ammonia. Or, in layman’s terms, pee.
I mention the aroma to my husband.
“Are you cleaning the litter box?” I ask him. “Daily?”
“Why am I always the one who gets blamed?” he asks.
“Why am I responsible for the cat smelling like pee?”
“Maybe she’s sick,” I say, cutting him off. “Let’s keep an eye on her.”
Worried, I hop on the Internet to do some research.
Opening Google™, I enter my query: CATS SMELL URINE.
Five million sites on how to remove the smell of cat urine from carpets, furniture, suitcases, and clothing fill the screen.
I try again.
CATS SMELL FUR AMMONIA
CATS STINK URINE DISEASE
CATS SMELLY PEE DISEASE
Nothing, although I now know fifty different ways to remove urine stains from cashmere. I give it one last try.
CATS ICKY YUCK SMELL PROBABLY CAUSED BY HUSBANDS
NON-SANITARY METHODS FOR FECES AND URINE
CLUMP DISPOSAL
Bingo. A site for Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease (FLUTD) appears. FLUTD, I read, takes on many different forms and stages. The most serious is when tiny crystals appear in a cat’s urine. Death is possible.
I race downstairs where my husband is watching TV.
“Have you seen any signs of crystals?” I shriek.
“Huh?” he says.
“Fluted! Fatal cat disease! Crystals in the urine! Have you seen any?”
I race back upstairs, not giving him a chance to answer.
The website indicates cats with urinary tract infections need to drink a lot of water, adding that with their inquisitive nature, cats are more likely to drink out of bowls placed in odd spots around the home. They also say some cats enjoy drinking from running water.
The next afternoon my husband approaches me.
“Why is my shower running?” he asks.
“In case the cat gets thirsty,” I reply. “Can you move?
You’re blocking the TV.”
Later that night he appears again, clenching a dripping sock in one hand.
“Did you know there’s a pan full of water at the top of the stairs?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “There are also bowls of water under the dining room table, in the laundry room, on top of the dresser in the guest bedroom, and under the bathroom sink.”
“Why don’t you just take her to the vet?” he begs.
I take her the next day. Returning home, I release the cat and stand in front of my husband.
“Well?”
“It’s not good,” I begin.
He puts a hand to his heart. “Oh my God. You mean she’s…she’s…”
“Oh, no, the cat’s fine,” I say, waving away his concern.
“We’re the ones in trouble.” I pause, wondering how to relay the information I possess. I decide to just shoot it out there.
“We have to wipe her butt. Daily.”
He blinks. Opens his mouth. Thinks better of it. Opens it again.
“Why?” finally comes out.
“Because,” I sigh. “She’s too fat and her skin is folding over and trapping pieces of…you know…in the area of her—“
“Lalalalalalalalala,” says my husband, sticking fingers in both ears.“I can’t hear you. Lalalalalalalala…”
I give him “the look.”
He removes his fingers. “Look here,” he says. “You said cats were easy.” He points an accusatory finger at me.
“In fact, you promised that all we had to do was feed and water and occasionally pet them. And NOW,” he raises his voice as I make to interrupt,“you’re telling me we have to catch and hold down a creature—with claws—so we can wash poo from between the fatty folds of her butt?!”
“Um, actually,” I say with a meek smile, “you have to wipe her butt. Poo makes me sick.”
After several rounds of negotiations and the threat of divorce, I agree to at least hold the cat while he wipes.
I lull the cat into a false sense of security by combing her for twenty minutes. When she is relaxed and purring, I motion for my husband, hiding low at the top of the stairs with a wet towel, to approach.
“Is the towel the right temperature?” I whisper.
“Not too hot and not too cold?”
He glares at me.
“Right,” I say. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
Gingerly, as if afraid she was wired with explosives, he lifts the cat’s tail. Her ears perk and she twists her head to look at him.
“Easy now,” he says, wiping.
“Mrow?” queries the cat.
“I think she likes it,” I encourage.
“That thought terrifies me,” says my husband, prying open folds of fat to clean between them.
“Rrrrrrrrr.” The sound coming from her was half growl, half purr.
“Hurry up,” I urge.
“Do you want this end of the job?” he asks. “Because I’m willing to trade.”
We finish cleaning and my husband attempts to hand me the brown-stained cloth.
I make gagging noises and wave him away. “I can’t even look at that.”
“Well, what should I do with it?”
“Washing machine.”
“Ewwww. I’m not putting kitty poo in the washing machine.”
I look at him. “Please remind me to never bear you children,” I say.
It got worse. I made the mistake of telling my mom about the butt-wiping. She was full of non-helpful suggestions.
“Maybe you need a bigger litter box. Maybe she just can’t…you know…maneuver properly.”
“The litter box is fine, Mom. The cat is just too fat.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of such a thing. Everyone knows cats clean themselves.”
“Mom, the vet said –“
“The vet! What does he know? What makes him such an expert?”
“Twelve years of schooling?” I reply.
I’ve stopped telling people we have to wipe the cat’s butt. My friends with kids laugh at me. My friends without pets think I’m nuts. My friends with pets, especially cat owners, say nothing but look infuriatingly smug that they don’t have to do the same.
So it’s just me, the cat, and my husband bearing out our dirty little secret. It’s almost become routine. Now every Monday, along with taking out the trash and watering the plants, we have the added chore of washing a weeks worth of kitty poo towels.
Yes, it’s gross.
But at least the cat smells better.
My husband and I sit on the couch. We reach for one another. Kiss, kiss. Nudge, rub. Moans, giggles, and the beginning flickers of passion ignite. Until…
We have a sense of being watched. We open our eyes and she is sitting at our feet, staring at us. We ignore her and continue kissing. There is complete silence. We peek out from under our lids. She is still there. Staring.
“I can’t do this with her watching,” I say.
“Ignore her,” says my husband, nuzzling my neck.
I accept his caresses, but keep looking back at the cat.
She has plopped down on the carpet and is staring rapt at us, as if engrossed in a good movie. All she needs is a bowl of popcorn.
My husband senses my tension and stops. The cat looks from one of us to the other, eyes wide and innocent. Don’t mind me, her look implies, I’m not even here.
We leave the cat and move into the bedroom. Kiss, kiss, kiss. An article or two of clothing hits the floor. Then we feel a plop at the foot of the bed. We look down and the cat is sitting on the corner of the mattress, staring at us.
“Nope,” I say, getting up. “It’s like performing in front of a camera. Can’t do it.”
My husband glares daggers at the cat, who, now that the show is over, starts to give herself a bath.
It’s only recently the cat has decided to stalk us during foreplay. Her prior reaction was more like that of a child who catches their parents having sex. They do everything short of setting themselves on fire to erase the image from their mind.
Before, if the cat would see us kissing she would give a little start, as if we’d scared her. Then she would make a face and run off down the hall.
Eww, yuck. Stop it! That is sooo gross. Why would you want to do that?
Now I feel like we’re the parents of a three-year-old, trying to find a moment when the child is distracted to sneak off and have sex.
“Psst. The cat’s asleep on the window seat. Let’s go.”
So it lacks a little in the romance department. It gets the job done.
I think the cat wouldn’t be so fascinated (or disgusted) by our open displays of affection if she weren’t so standoffish herself. Getting her to agree to be petted is akin to entering into a trade agreement with a foreign country—57 lots of conditions and clauses, and you’re never sure if they’re going to back out at the last minute.
To pet our cat, one must not have come into contact with any other animal in the past 48 hours. One must have warm hands, fresh breath, move slowly with no sudden movements, scratch diligently under her chin and behind her ears, and never under any circumstances touch her tail or paws. If any of these conditions are breeched, it can be taken as an all out declaration of war.
But perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe she is there to help, watching us with only the best intentions of offering advice.
Perhaps her look of furrowed concentration comes from trying to send mental messages of encouragement to my husband.
Hey, scratch her behind the ear. We chicks love that.
Now rub her tummy. And sort of pouf her hair up, and then pat it back down. That’s sure to get her motor going.
The obvious solution would be to continue romantic activities behind closed doors. But many of the doors in our old home don’t latch completely and, when fifteen pounds of kitty weight are thrown against them, they swing wide open.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
So we’ll continue with the clandestine sex. Actually, it makes for a rousing change of pace. We feel a little naughty sneaking off behind the cat’s back to do the wild thing.
And I must admit it’s a whole lot more enticing than it was seeing the look of disgust on the cat’s face when we so much as kissed.
Besides, it’s not like nothing good has come from the cat watching us. Her presence has been inspiring, even.
I’m quite enjoying those tummy rubs.
I am scared for my life. Our three-year-old black and white female cat has declared Kitty Jihad on my husband and me. I’m unsure as to what provoked this kitty holy war, but my guess is it all started when the veterinarian had us reduce the amount of food we were feeding the cat. During the cat’s last check-up, the vet had discreetly slipped me a brochure on caring for obese cats. I knew the cat’s tummy had grown a bit, but obese? Ridiculous!
I showed my husband the brochure, hoping he would feel the same injured sense of outrage for our poor cat that I did. Instead, he started referring to her as “Tubby.” If the cat was eating when he walked by he called out “Hey, Tubby, drop the nibbles and give me a lap!” He would then laugh roundly at this so-called humor. Neither the cat nor I was amused. I spoke with my husband about his insensitivity.
“She’s not fat,” I said. “The vet said she only needs to lose three pounds.”
“Well, she weighs fifteen pounds. Three pounds is therefore approximately twenty percent of her body weight,” he said smugly. “That’s a lot.” He turned to face the cat. “Isn’t that right, Tubby?”
The cat made it clear she was not pleased with the new food rationing. I’m not making accusations, but let’s just say I started finding kitty litter in a whole new variety of places around the house. But we stuck to our guns.
I laugh now at our naivety. I’d heard jokes about the sadistic and unforgiving nature of cats, but it wasn’t until I became a cat owner with a ticked off cat that I was able to grasp the full sadistic implications of a feline’s malice.
Simply put, our cat has declared a holy war against us.
The Kitty Jihad focuses on sleep deprivation. Our cat, who must have studied at some institute of higher learning before we rescued her off the streets, has taken to intentionally interrupting our REM cycles during sleep. The REM (rapid eye movement) cycle is what is needed for deep sleep to occur. Without it, people become irritable, unfocused, and experience loss of memory and concentration.
It begins late at night, after we fall asleep. The cat leaps onto our bed, and stares at us, waiting for the jittery movement of the eyeball behind the closed lid, indicating deep sleep is now occurring. Then, and only then, does she hop to the floor, and position herself in the doorway between our bedroom and the hall. This is just beyond the distance, coincidentally, that either my husband or myself can throw a shoe or pillow with any accuracy.
Once positioned, the cat does some gargling and deep breathing exercises to prepare for what is to come. She inhales deeply into the depths of her lungs, and expels upward and outward a powerful burst of air that reverberates in the silence of the darkened house into one long, loud “MEEE-OOOW!!”
Once she sees my husband and I bolt upright in the bed, clutching frantically at the sheets, each other, and our pillows, she really lets rip. “Meow, rowr, rowr, MOWW, meeoooow.”
Then she’s silent. We hold our breath and wait.
More silence. The worst appears to be over. We allow ourselves to fall back into our pillows.
“MROWRRRRR!!!!” screeches the cat at the top of her lungs.
“What the…?!?” my husband says, wrenching upright again.
“It’s the cat,” I say, punching the pillow and rolling over.
“Oh,” he says. “I thought maybe you were being murdered by an intruder.”
“No, but thanks for your concern,” I mutter. “You almost made it fully out of the bed.”
During this exchange, the cat has paced into the hallway.
A twenty-minute silence allows us to return to sleep.
The cat again takes up position. Now she adopts a more lyrical, questioning tone of voice. “Mrow? Rorw? Meow, meow.” Long pause. “Mrow?”
It’s impossible to sleep through it.
I nudge my husband. “Honey, do you love me?” I ask.
“Mmm-um” he replies.
“Rowrrr? Mrreow?” says the cat.
I nudge him again. “If you really loved me you’d get up and do something about the cat.”
He snorts air and pulls the covers tighter. “Uh-um.
Didn’ work lass night. Couldn’t catch ‘er.” He begins to snore.
That’s the signal the cat has been waiting for. “MROW!” she shrieks joyfully.
I carefully pry my husband off the ceiling.
What can we do? Kitty Jihad is declared and there is no escape. I’ve gotten out of bed to pet the cat but she just runs. I’ve plied her with toys to no avail. Finally I closed the bedroom door, but I’m not sure hearing muffled cat howls through painted wood is any sort of real victory.
We’re barely holding our own. And although we’re both on the verge of getting fired from our jobs—apparently it’s frowned upon to use your keyboard as a pillow— we have not backed down. The time is coming though, when someone will have to give. As I left for work this morning, I noticed the cat. She was sitting oh-so-casually near our new sofa, flexing her claws.
“You wouldn’t dare,” I said.
She stretched and gave the couch a significant glance before strolling away.
So I’m ready to surrender. I just hope she doesn’t do anything drastic before I get home from work. I’m worried though, because I might be a little late arriving.
You see, I’m going to have to stop and buy some kitty snacks.
Kitty Jihad wins again.