My life has become a cat-tastrophe – I am entirely responsible for four cats. That’s at least three more than I’d like to be responsible for. Cats are over run here. And now Baby Girl has decided that she wants a cat birthday party. She wears cat ear headbands, cheetah pants and shirts, pretends that she IS a cheetah running around the house and jumping off the walls and the beds. She has cat pajamas and cat shirts and probably even cat underwear. I guess this is an improvement from pretending to be a puppy?
So here I am scrolling aimlessly through Amazon looking for cat birthday decorations, cat cake toppers, cat wrapping paper and cat party favors. Sipping wine and randomly hitting “add to cart” and not really caring what ends up in there. Buying a dress with cats on it and leopard print shoes from Zulily. Wondering what on earth we have unleashed. Cat balloons with whiskers? Cute. Buttttt only six in a pack and then I’d have to have helium so they’d float and somebody would definitely let one go and cry. Scratch the balloons. Cat cake? Holy hell cakes are expensive. I’ll get a “plain” $50 cake from Candy Haven and put my own decorations on it. Another $20 to Amazon. Cat tablecloth? We’ll be outside so I’d have to tape it down. Never mind. We can do a bare table.
I’m pretty sure all this started with the barn cat we adopted in December. Daphne is the cutest, sweetest little son of a bug ever. She comes when she is called, she follows me everywhere, she wants to be picked up and held for long periods of time. Until she’s done, then she’ll turn and scratch your face or bite your arm so that you drop her muttering “shit!” under your breath. She likes to play and she has the best purr. We have quality cuddle time every morning before I feed the horses. She loves people and will lay down in the arena directly in everyone’s way. But nobody gets upset with her because she’s so damn cute. She’s literally the best. (Well except for the biting and scratching).
You would think, however, that all this sweet cat cuteness would be dispelled by the annoying-as-shit Moby. Moby is fifteen years old. A senior cat by anyone’s definition. Almost eighty years old in human terms according to google. And the most annoying creature I’ve ever owned. He started out alright. He and my mom’s cat, Margaret, were born in an old broken down tractor out on my parents back forty and then moved up to the front porch behind the wisteria and under the rocking chair. Five little gray balls of fluff. Couldn’t tell them apart. So they were called, in no particular order, Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo and Margaret. They were born in August of 2005.
I was home for Thanksgiving that year having just lost my cat of many years, Sam (who I loved desperately). I was absolutely not going to take a new kitten. But then he crawled up into my lap and up my arm and burrowed under my chin and I said “I’ll take this one.” That was Mo (I guess). Soon to be re-named Moby. For a long time it was just Moby and me and he was super cute and I loved him. Then I met Tony and Moby’s life as he knew it was over. With Tony came Ali. And then came Pineapple. Pineapple was given to me to be a barn cat but when I took her to the barn to check things out it was quickly apparent that our current barn cat, Swiffer, was one hundred percent intending on eating her. Or just killing her flat out. So I scooped her up and brought her up to the house.
Moby sniffed the wee thing and then disdainfully backed away from it. Pineapple fled to Ali’s room where she remained under the bed for three days. She’s rarely left since. That was 10 years ago. All of a sudden I had two house cats. Moby treats Pineapple much as a little sister and is constantly antagonizing her and attacking her. She gets great patches of hair missing from her back – from stress possibly? Pineapple does not want to be held or cuddled and very rarely will let you pet her. She hisses at Skylar and seeks refuge under any bed.
Speaking of beds, I will be laying in my bed reading, and the INSTANT I turn out the light and snuggle in there goes Moby searching Pineapple out so he can bite her and make a yowling racket even Baby Girl can’t sleep through. I swear he waits until I am comfortable. Or he’ll be on my bed and start to make that “AAAACCCKK-HUH” sound that signals he’s about to throw up. On my bed. And I have to leap out of bed and carry him to the wood floors. Or shove him with my foot off onto the carpet at least.
And then there’s the treat problem. Something I started without realizing that cats are just as susceptible to Pavlov dogs training as the dogs were. As soon as I get up – out of bed, from my desk chair, from the recliner, from the toilet, he runs ahead of me to the kitchen and starts the most pitiful meowing you can imagine. And here’s the thing – he doesn’t shut up. Ever. Until you give in. Which obviously I do because I like peace in my life.
I finally started putting him in my back room at night because the MOST annoying thing he does is… about 5 am he will start walking up and down on my bed. From my head to my toes. Going “mreeewwwuh” every time he makes a circuit. Designed solely to force me to get up and give him treats. If I manage to avoid him he will, about 6 am, start patting my face with his paws and increasing the volume and quantity of the “mreeewwwuh’s.” This is unbearable. If I shove him off the bed he comes right back. If I shut him out of my room he sits out there and yowls. Which will wake Baby Girl up. If I shut him IN my room he will sit at the door and make the sound of Satan until I let him out. Never happy, that cat. So the door stays open and I made a cozy little nest for him in the back room. Not that that solves everything. He then spends about an hour yowling his head off which I can hear all the way back in my bedroom. He is voicing his displeasure but I no longer care.
He also loves it when I eat. I now have to stand with my back to the counter in order to put anything in my mouth that has not been touched by his paws or his mouth. He steals food off of plates. He practically sits in my plate. He watches every bite go from the plate to my mouth. It’s maddening. And he has taught Pineapple that this is a fun game so now she does it, too.
And then there’s Margaret. My mom’s cat that is now living with my Dad. Nobody over there (Dad or his caretaker) is going to clean that cat box. So that, of course, falls to me. The caretaker does give her food and water but I have also arranged to have the food delivered every month so that we can’t possibly run out. Margaret is Moby’s full sister so is also 15. Recently I googled “why does my cat yowl so loud.” I learned that Moby is probably not only going deaf, which is why the volume of his utterances has increased tremendously but that he also is probably suffering from “cat cognitive decline.” In short, my cat has dementia.
I am losing my mind over here over all these cats. If Moby and Pineapple had claws I’d throw both their asses outside and bring Daphne in (maybe). I swear I will never have another inside cat. I am tired of the cat boxes, the litter all over the house, the fur, the yowling, the throwing up and the fact that now both my Mom and my cat have dementia. I just can’t win.
I’m beginning to look back on the puppy thing with longing and fond memories.
