by Dena Harris
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.
-8-
The Great Cat Butt Wiping Adventure
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.
-9-
Passion Denied
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 c
ontinue 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.
-10-
Kitty Jihad
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.
Part II
Cat & Kitten
-11-
A Second Cat
I was worried about the cat.
She was lethargic, dragging around the house. Oh sure, she perked up when we fed her, scampering to her food dish, but otherwise she seemed bored.
I had the perfect solution.
“We need another cat,” I told my husband.
He stared at me. “Are you insane?” he asked. “We can’t deal with the one we’ve got.”
“I know,” I said. “But I think another cat would help.
That way she would have a little friend to play with and she’d get some exercise. Plus, they can keep each other company while we’re at work.”
“Cats don’t need company,” said my husband. “They’re independent.”
He spoke in the same smug tone he uses when we discuss whether or not to leave a nightlight on for the cat.
He insists there’s no need, as cats can see in the dark. My point is that light is always a source of comfort, even if you can see fine without it. We never reached agreement on the matter and now take a passive-aggressive stance as we punch the nightlight over the stove on and off in a neverending battle of will.
