There's a cat that lives in my house. (Well, there are two actually, but since I find that nigh unto intolerable, we'll pretend there's only one. Besides, the second one is 18 years old and, God willing, will soon "cross the bridge.") Anyway--there's a cat that lives in my house. (That's him, in the picture.) For the sake of his anonymity, we'll call him Dirty Bastard Cat--or DBC, for short. We'll call him that, because that's what I've nicknamed him and I refer to him by that name at least once a day, if not more.It being an ungodly hour, I'm up with nothing else to write about except how this cat is slowly warming to me and me to him. (Bastard!)
Case in point: at night he falls asleep on the end of the bed in the guest room, but at some point in the night, if he hasn't clomped down the stairs to his perch on the back of the couch in the basement, he treads on catlike paws ('cause those are the only paws he has--cat ones, like, you know?) into the office. Once in the office--where he really isn't suppose to be to begin with--he proceeds to fall asleep in the middle of the floor. Which is precisely where I found him tonight.
He looked up at me with bleary eyes, stood up, rubbed against my legs, let me scratch his ears and chin, and then settled in under my chair to continue sleeping. He's there right now, even as I type. And he's snoring. He does that a lot. Snores. It's 'cause he's fat. (And, according to my friend, Ms. Swizzies, "He's weird looking." I think that's on account of his purebred features and his white beard. But I could be wrong. We're still waiting for a clarification on that observation by the aforementioned friend.)
Now here's the rub. I started out hating this cat. He hissed at me and would take swipes at me when I'd do little more than bend over to pet him or offer him some tasty morsel. Now, though? Now I'm the only one he'll allow to groom him. Now he eats whatever I'm eating. And, with the exception of when I wear my Birkenstocks--which he hates and hisses at--he let's me pet him whenever I want to. As a result, I'm now warming to this damn, spawn-of-the-devil, dirty bastard Dirty Bastard Cat! Here I am, typing away and he's lying asleep under my chair. And that warms my wee little, Grinch-sized, cat-hating heart.
Crap.
Damn you, Dirty Bastard Cat. Damn you!
Okay... Amend that. He just farted. I'm back to officially hating him again.
Gag...
Oh well. I guess it could be worse. It could be 3:30 in the morning--like it was the other night... And he could be hurling--like he was the other night...
When this cat hurls, you can hear him in Outer Mongolia, that's how loud he is. The EPA has threatened to level noise pollution fines against us, he's that loud. He's so loud, in fact, he woke me from a dead sleep, which is no small feat given I only hear in one ear and I always sleep on my good ear, so I'm dead to the world.
The real bugger is, for all the pomp and circumstance he puts into hurling, the end result is a yield so small it's patronizing. The other night, not only was it small, it was the consistency of peanut butter. Peanut butter! I mean, come on. If you're gonna go to all that trouble, at least produce a chunk or two of substance. (TMI?)
It's a good thing his hurling woke me up, though, 'cause my housemate, Bee, didn't even stir. Slept through the whole thing. And she hears out of both ears! But I was awake. So, I cleaned it up. Better than waking up in the morning and accidentally treading in it.
Which brings me to my next point. (I'm not sure I know what my point is, but I'm pretty confident I'll have one by the end of this post.) Have you ever noticed that animals hurl in the most inconvenient places? Like the middle of the hallway? Could you pick a more obvious place?
And this is why I love small dogs. A small dog starts to hurl and it paralyzes them, which means you can pick 'em up and hold 'em over the toilet. So much easier than hairball-hurling felines.
You just wait, Dirty Bastard Cat. You just wait. One day, there's gonna be a dog in this house and then you're gonna get a run for your money!
Bwahahahahahahahahaha!
19 comments:
I have a cat like that. This morning when the phone rang at 1:30 am, I reached down to scratch her sweet little sleepy head and the end of the bed, she looked up at me with loving eyes, hissed, bit the hell out of my arm and ran off - all in the course of a second.
I refuse to believe I said something so rude about a cat - a CAT! I LOVE cats.
I totally can't even write that with a straight face.
But seriously, how rude! Who am *I* to say the cat looks odd?! I'm quite certain he would say the same of me. Perhaps he's been zapped one too many times by the Cat Couch Repellent System - I know that can make someone a little frazzled.
And I must say, if The Cat hisses at Birkenstocks, he clearly has good taste. ;-)
My darling bastard cat Charlies leaves DEAD MICE on the floor for me to find. He knows exactly where to place them so I will step on them with my bare feet in the morning as I go to the kitchen to get my coffee.
I think HE thinks he's being sweet leaving that little gift. But then again, maybe he enjoys the I-just-stepped-on-dead-mouse dance I do - with my tongue out going ew ew ew ew hopping on one foot to the sink to wash the mice germs off.
From a "not a cat person" (no hate please I am allergic so I can't get close enough to know if I'd like them or not)this post actually solidified my true dog lover card carrying ways.
Grinch sized heart - hysterical!
NG: I just had a similar experience. Went in, saw DBC sleeping on the end of the bed, reached out to scratch him behind the ears, and he woke up. Then he hissed and swatted at me. I think he's bipolar. Bastard.
Ms. Swizzies: It wasn't rude, but it was puzzling. Bee asked me later, "What do you think she meant by weird?" I said, "I don't know, but he is kinda funny looking." And speaking of the Cat Couch Repellent System: the first time he sat on that and got zapped the look of horror and indignation on his pussy face was HILL-AIR-EE-OUS! I laughed out loud. Which makes me the Grinch. Heh.
Liseysmom: The only consolation I have with these cats is, they're not allowed outside. (They've never been outside cats, darn it all.) As a result, we don't find little gifts like that, thank goodness. If DBC was allowed outside, I have no doubt we'd find stuff like that all the time and I think that would be the straw that would break my back. The first time I stepped on a mouse would be the last time that cat would draw breath. Ugh!
Wicked H: Glad I could be of service! I can't wait to get a dog. Infinitely better than cats in SO many ways.
I use to have cats. But my husband is far beyond "hates cats." And to back up his feelings, he's allergic too.
What is a Cat Couch Repellant system? I'm dying to know.
My sister once had a cat - devil bitch that she was - that would lay down and stretch, the type that invited you to scratch her tummy. And just as you thought she was enjoying it, all four paws, all her poinky claws honed to razor sharp perfection, and a mouth full of needle sharp teeth, would pounce unhearlded on the tummy scratching hand. Devil Bitch.
Methinks she doth protest too much!
You are funnie!!!!!!!!!
;)
No one writes an entry like this unless they REALLY like the creature they're claiming to hate.
it's like a fourth grader writing "so&so has cooties" on his/her notebook to disguise the fact that s/he really has a crush on so&so.
which is to say, I found the whole thing very sweet.
And really, no one is at their best while they're puking....
When I can breath again from this post, I will NOT say that my own cats are angelic darlings. We did the yin/yang thing and have two cats and a dog. It seems to balance out the house, fung shui-icly speaking (it's my word now, hah!).
Cele: The DBC does the same thing to me sometimes. I've learned, though, 'cause he bites. Hard. I'd rather be stung by Asian Tiger Mosquitos and I really, really, really HATE those.
Zanne: Shakespeare, Schmakespeare. I like the little bugger enough, but if someone came to me today and said, "I'll trade you your cat for this dog", I'd do it in a New York minute.
Holly: I'm growing to like him enough, but I'm still an avowed dog person. One hundred and one percent. (I had a cat once and I ended up giving it away, because I didn't like his aloofness or cleaning a litter box. He went to a wonderful family in South Lake Tahoe who changed his name from Yipes to Thomas.)
Sid: Cats are why we have to have fung shui: they screw up the balance of the universe.
See? I told you all. I'm the Grinch.
P.S. Cele, I forgot to answer your question about the Cat Couch Repellent System. When I first moved into this house with Bee and her two cats, I set down limits on which rooms the cats could/n't be in. (I know you're all laughing hysterically at me, but I have them trained. Ms. Swizzies can attest to that.) One of the rooms they aren't allowed in is the living room. I have a cream/white colored couch and I didn't want it covered in cat hair or pissed on.
We bought two pads that are six feet long and about a foot wide. The pads are wired and connected to a battery box that charges the wires. When the pad comes in contact with an animal or human, it lets off an electrical shock. Obviously it's not all that comfortable. (You can ask Ms. Swizzies about that, too.)
I got them trained to not come into the living room, per se, but the 18-year old cat found her way onto the couch once and pissed on it. THAT pissed me WAY off. So, I retrieved a pad and put it on the couch. The old cat hasn't been on the couch since.
The moral of the story: Cats can be trained.
Again: Proof I'm the Grinch. (And I'm okay with that.)
I have 2 bastard cats as well. I feel your pain!
My cat that died last year lived to be 22. You may have a few years left with the second cat. :)
Ms. U: Aaaaah. Cats.
Liz: 22 years?!?!! Oh, please don't say that. I mean, DBC I can handle, but 18 Cat is nervous, fearful, 'fraidy cat who makes us INSANE. Actually, she's quite sweet, but we sometimes wish she would pass on so she could finally be at peace and free from whatever it is that spooks her (she's scared of her own shadow. Seriously.)
Our small dog started to hurl this morning and I wasn't going anywhere near her til it was all out and on the rug - she never manages to hit the hard floor. She's probably the main reason we don't get new carpet...
HM_UK: Why is it that they never manage to hit the hard floor? It's a total mystery... I suppose the one saving grace in our house is, it's 80% hardwood floors, so when DBC hurls, 80% of the time, it's on hardwood. Cat 18, OTOH, hurls wherever. On the carpet. On the wood floors. On the bed. On the couch. Nothing is sacred for her.
Cat 18.... Go toward the light, Cat 18. Go toward the light....
Liz speaks the truth. The cat I got for my 11th birthday just died about two years ago. He was fully grown when we got him, making him at LEAST 23 years old when he went to the great catnip field in the sky...
I'm kinda scared of cats.
My brother has cats that are potty trained. As in, they go IN THE TOILET.
Except for the one, when she's mad at him, she'll poo right on his pillow. Mwuahahahahaha! Vindication for all those times he held me down and let his spit hang just above my face, sucking it back up just at the point where I was sure it was about to drop on my face.
Liseysmom: Ugh. Not the news I want to hear.
SML: Cats scare me, too. And I wish ours had been trained to use the toilet. I find litter boxes to be disgusting. (But then, that's Agnes' job.)
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