Life in a Cat House

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Brenna the Dog, the big scary
Doberman who is actually a giant cream puff with fuzzy ears. Now I’ve
been asked to provide equal time for our cats. Ok, here goes.

First
off, I’m pretty sure we have three cats. I’m not entirely sure, because
you can never be entirely sure of anything when it comes to cats. I
have my suspicions that one of them might be a really tiny covert CIA
agent in a kitty suit, but so far Karl Rove has been
uncharacteristically silent on the subject...

Until
a year ago we also had a more-or-less-male cat named “Benny.” As near
as we could tell, he was an expert in antiques and had a bit of a flair
for interior design. Benny was also known as “Esmeralda.” We miss Benny
a lot – last summer the little guy went to that great Versace
scratching post in the sky.

Our
cats divide their days into two major sections. First is the “Sleeping
Time” which lasts roughly twenty-two hours per day. Through careful
observation, we’ve been able to identify a number of different sleeping
modes. These include “snoozing,” “napping,” “slumbering,” “just resting
my eyes,” “zonked,” “dead to the world,” and “crapped out on top of the
refrigerator.”

If you should happen to need a cat during the Sleeping Time (ok, nobody in history has ever actually “needed a cat,” but just play along with me here) all you have to do is fire up the can opener.

The
balance of a cat’s life is the “Mostly Not Sleeping Time,” which is
divided into twelve periods of around ten minutes each, scattered
throughout the day and night. Typical Mostly Not Sleeping Time
activities include staring at a spider on a window, stomping across
your pillow at 4 AM, carrying a stuffed mouse around and yowling,
staring at a window with no spider on it, and scouting for a good place
to catch a little shuteye.

If
you should happen to catch up with a cat during the Mostly Not Sleeping
Time and scratch her belly, she will immediately punch out and head
back for the Sleeping Time.

You
would think that with three cats in the house, we’d be pretty much free
of mice. You would be right. We had a family of mice move in earlier
this summer, apparently planning a nice vacation on the lake, but it
didn’t really work out for them. If you don’t mind, I’d rather not
dwell on the details.

So
there you have it. Despite my being, as I admitted a few weeks ago, a
C.P. (Complete Pushover), my wife has managed to limit our menagerie to
cats and dogs. We’ve passed on gerbils, ferrets, snakes, hamsters,
toads, rabbits, tarantulas, degus, skinks, snakes, parakeets, condors,
llamas, and Gila monsters.

Come to think of it, she might be out of town for a couple of days next month. Anybody know where I can adopt a nice baby otter?

Copyright © 2005 Michael Ball