Really, what is up with that cat?
At first I blamed it on me. I mean, I was working 14 hours a day and so didn't really get to spend a lot of quality time with him. And he was used to having you and E. around, and so probably he was lonely, a bit upsetting I imagine, the change of household, furniture, the arrival of the "other" fat cat.
But I've been spending a bit more time with him as of late, a bit more quality time as my schedule has relaxed somewhat, and I have to say, really, what the hell is up with that cat?
It used to be kind of funny, the way he'd look off into the middle distance, or out the window or at some imaginary point just above you on the sofa, then work his way over to it to investigate, never catching your eye, intent upon his goal, then, just as he had reached it he'd pretend to faint or just slip off the sofa (clumsy cat!) and land in your lap, ah, well, and here he would give up the grand investigation and settle in to making himself comfortable. His cuddle time. How sweet.And I've allowed him to do it, I'm not so amused by it any more, the same trick done a thousand times loses it's magic, but I appreciate that he needs his cuddle time and so I give him an hour or so while I'm reading a book. An hour a day, that should be sufficient, shouldn't it? I mean, I compare it to the demands of my own cat, roughly 5 minutes per week, a quick leap on the lap, pet, then off to do her cat things. So I think I'm being pretty generous.
Especially given how he's treated my cat. She's been exiled upstairs, having to wait for me to go down in the morning to supervise her while she grabs a quick bite then goes outside for the day. They've had some awfully noisy rows, with her batting him with her claws and him leaving with pinpricks of blood all down his face, yet he still doesn't give up. Sometimes just seeing her makes him so mad that he paces the floor and spits. It annoys me, I gotta say, how long has it been now here? Almost 3 months, he should have gotten used to her. On the up side, she's lost a fair bit of weight and is no longer even slightly fat. Not a bit, not even a whisker.
So anyways, I think I'm being pretty generous with my affections. But it's not enough. He follows me from room to room, partly to ensure that I'm not letting her in behind his back, and partly to see what I'm up to. I open the fridge and he's right there, poking his nose into the vegetables in the bottom. What the hell does he eat that comes out of the fridge? If I'm doing the dishes or standing in the kitchen he stands right in front of me or underfoot and then falls over and twists kittenishly upon his back, begging me to pet his belly.
He is so obviously not a kitten.
If I'm on the sofa and reading and want to be left alone he comes up to me and butts heads. He forces himself upon me, trying to climb on my lap, stick his head between my arms and the book, he's absolutely relentless, and just when I think he's understood "No, fuck off, I mean it" he tries it again.
Then there's the kitty litter box.
I used to like cleaning the kitty litter box with my cat, I'd pretend I was a famous paleontologist or archeologist excavating fossils or relics, sifting through the litter with my little scoop...Sometimes I'd put a bit of gold leaf in the cats wet food so I'd get the glimpse of treasure in the tray. It was a treat. But now, well....
Now I need a front end loader and blasting equipment, forklifts, cranes just to get your cat's boulders out of the tray. These aren't just bones and relics, these are entire fossilized dinosaurs, extinction event meteors, the scattering of litter across the floor witness to the devastation that's been wreaked here. I have purchased special rubber boots that i reserve especially to wear on trips to the basement.
But that's not all. No, that's not it by a long shot. No, there's the "ass wipe on my chest". You know how my cat likes to sometimes sit on my chest and purr, paws together, eyes closed, sphinx-like, regal. Well, your cat also likes to sit on my chest, only after he's first dragged his butt across it and I'm clued in by the damp streak and little balls clinging to the wool of my sweater ("Acrylic from my painting" I think and go to pluck them off but as I roll them between my fingers the smell gives away the fact that they're definitely not bits of flung paint.). My sweater, the favorite one I bought in Kathmandu, is in the wash as I write.
There are the wake ups. The time I forgot my cat outside for the night and he took the opportunity to slip into my bedroom unannounced in the middle of the night, I woke to find him in bed cuddling my face, missionary style, licking and batting it with his paws as if we were gay lovers.
I've never forgotten my cat outside since.
Not that he wouldn't be welcome to sleep on the bed, the foot of the bed with the other cat, but he'd have to get along with her and, well, he's not doing so good at that. He'd prefer to sit in the doorway to the bedroom and glare at her like an insanely jealous lover.
There are the early morning serenades. 5:00 AM the other morning, he's chosen the bathroom for his performance (the acoustics there are better I suspect), He's a bit of a Pavarotti amongst cats, his voice, loud and full with a certain mournful quality (perhaps that explains his obesity, the better to project with...), a proper caterwauling, which I translate below:
"Oh, I will die soon, worry not for me,
My life was a good one,
And certainly I'm glad you took the time
to refill the water dish
and if you forgot, worry not, worry not for me...."
Now he could hop into the tub, if he weren't so fat, and lap at the drain like mine does when thirsty, but he's a bit of a drama queen and who could resist this 5:00 AM aria, and as I'm leaping from bed to solicit his autograph he suddenly grows shy and dashes downstairs...
But he's not done, no, no sooner have I crawled back into bed then he starts his serenade again.
"Oh, you have your cat whore, and I my unquenchable thirst ...."
Now if he's been without water it hasn't been for long, a couple of hours at best, but he's stuck on this, the re-enactment of his death, and so finally I get up and discover the water dish to be empty, and fill it and at the same time help him outside by the scruff of his neck, where he serenades the neighbors for the next 8 hours.
Every 30 seconds, "Mew, Meow. Mew. Mew mew. Meow.". Ceaseless, as regular as a clock, front door, back door, wherever he calculates it will gain the greatest effect..
Translation:
"Look, everyone, how my love has been repaid;
Listen to the song of my sorrow.
Look, upon me, the cruelly betrayed,
See how I'm wasting away?
How the cold wind bites at my portly frame?
Look, everyone, how my love has been betrayed..."
Of course he doesn't need the water dish as an excuse, there's always the "Just because", why, just this morning he calculated that I was oversleeping and so woke me again, outside the door, with his lugubrious mewing (as follows):
"Oh, what are you doing with that cat whore?
The day is passing and there's so much more...
Can't you see I'm waiting for my turn at love...."
I eventually had to wake up and concede the day was getting a little advanced, and set him again outside while I made my coffee. No, the water was full, as was the food, he just wanted me up.
Like when he plays with his cat toys - that squeaky mouse of his, outside my bedroom door at 2, 3, 4 in the morning, as if to say to us "I'm OK out here...no, don't invite me in, I've this to play with, I'm fine, no really..."
I chide myself for my ill feelings for him, I like animals, I like cats, "he's just a very different, very loving cat..." I tell myself, but he's about as representative of cats as a legless dachshund on a skateboard with diabetes and colostomy bag represents a dog ...
I've been having revenge fantasies. Like that the car is back from the body shop and I can just bundle him up in it and drive him up to Banff where he can serenade the wolves and the coyotes and the mountain lions and grizzlies with his particular brand of cat-music.
What would I tell E? That he was hit by a semi-trailer truck, no, no, the driver was all right but sadly her cat didn't make it. I imagine him flattened and hung behind glass upon the wall, or I could take him to a taxidermist and have him stuffed like a beanie-baby and mounted upon the mantle, there but quiet, a little less demanding, she might not even know that he was dead, only that his lovable disposition had somewhat improved....
"There can never be too much love in the world" I tell myself, but the fact is there's about 25 pounds too much love in the world and his name is Pumpkin.
I wonder how exactly you acquired him. I know, you've told me "A friend of a friend", but I think to myself there must have been an old lady with a writhing sack upon her back, a withered old crone or witch on her way to the river to drown it when you stopped her and asked what she was carrying and she told you "It's Satan in the sack, Missy...." and you decided to save him and rename him Pumpkin. Or maybe he was a condition of the condo, the condo's free if you look after the cat? In which case you got a very, very bad deal.
I've given up trying to explain it. The revenge fantasies, well, I try to keep them under control. I like to think he'll learn, but a part of me suspects he knows perfectly well, that the stupidity and blank looks are all a charade, the kittenish cuddles and "lovable" nature part of a plan to wear me down and break me, I try to tell myself that it's not really "him or me", but you know, it would help, just a bit, if you told me - really, what is up with that cat?.