An Open Letter to My Cat
I see you sitting there by the back door, waiting to be let in for the 300th time today so you can whine until I fill your bowl to the brim with kibble and then you eat a few bites and then whine until I let you back out again. But I don't want to let you in today, you pooper. You're a pooper. A stealthy, vindictive pooper who strikes when I least expect it. But my therapist has helped me see that I deserve better than this and that's why I am not letting you in.
Remember two nights ago? I fed you for the 312th time, around 10 pm. Then I sat down to watch TV. Everyone else had gone to bed. You came over and I guess you wanted some loving, and like a stupid fool without any self-esteem, I gave it to you. You sat on my lap, kneading my thighs with your razor sharp claws, but still, I scratched behind your ears and you purred and I petted you and you even licked my hands. I thought you loved me. We sat contentedly for an hour. Then I left you on the couch and went to bed. I heard you come into our room in the middle of the night, and I heard you purring at the foot of the bed. Little did I know what sadistic activity had made you so happy.
The next morning at 5 am I heard my husband wretching loud enough to wake the neighborhood. Then he started yelling for me to come clean up what MY cat had done.
I walked into the boys' room. You had pooped all over, and it was gloppy and disgusting. I am sick of your passive-aggressive shit! Literally, your passive-aggressive shit! You purr and want me to scratch your ears, oh yes, and fill your bowl to the brim, yes, yes, but then, I don't know if it was your upbringing or -- wait, I BROUGHT YOU UP! Your mom was my cat too.
This has got to stop. I have limits. No means no.
Here is your bowl of kibble, very full the way you like it. Yeah, you can eat it outside.
posted by Alexa Weber Morales @ 3/10/2009
3 comments
3 Comments:
We've got one who's prissy about the litterbox -- if it isn't pristine he goes hunting through the basement for stuff he can pee into. Like, oh, my ski bag (which stays loaded-to-go the whole season, since I have a shift every week). Nothing says "I love having cats" like grabbing your gear to go work an accident, and jamming something on your head which YOU thought was a HAT, but HE thought was a piss-sponge.
Sheesh. Between the mice in the toboggan packs and the cat-pee-smelling personnel, you wonder that the patients don't just go gallumping on down the hill on their broken legs. "No, I'm (AAAAGH!) fine! Really! (AAAGH!) Please go away now."
Tenzing (aka Kitty of the Big Shoulders) also likes to target some obscure corner that doesn't really cause a problem until the leaks in the basement start to spread things around, to volatilize right in front of the HVAC intake. Score! He's claimed the whole house with one widdle! He is the Puissant (sorry) Puss of Power!
Hard not to take it personally. But might your cat be unwell?
Oh yeah, I forgot the very first transgression: When our cats were kittens, we had the big Solstice Party and then went down to the Chicago burbs for most of a week the next day.
So they had some reasons. Big scary noisy bunch of people in their house, tromping all over and yelling "OOO! IS DA WIDDEW KITTUMS!" at the tops of their lungs, then abandoned to -- to -- to CAT-SITTERS for a whole week.
Still, the little pile carefully deposited in the geometric center of Brendan's pillow was a bit harsh, I thought.
"Piss-sponge" ha ha! No, she is not unwell. She has done this for years. My brother told me about "phantom shitters" in the Navy who would secretively leave deposits in extremely public places as a form of rebellion against order. My cat is the phantom shitter in my house. Years ago I was told to take her to a pet psychologist, which of course I did not do. When the problem continued (at that time it was peeing over the edge of the table while I was reading the paper) the vet suggested I tell her I loved her more often. I did, and she stopped. What's frustrating about this incident is that I WAS being loving to her.
Wait, maybe the problem is that the dog has been getting the run of the house more often lately because the boys let him in. Hmmmm.
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