Lessons In Stalking: Adjusting to Life With Cats (6 page)

-15-

Bath Time

Pots and pans flew, foundations rattled, and howls reached the heavens.

It was time to bathe the cats.

“Bloody hell,” growled my husband, attempting to hold a snarling cat under the waterspout. The kitten had knocked the kitchen phone off the hook and was frantically trying to reach PETA.

“You got it, you got it,” I encouraged my husband from across the room. I didn’t dare get any closer for fear of being mauled.

This was the ultimate exercise in stupidity. Everyone knows cats bathe themselves. But I’d read a magazine article that touted the benefits of semi-annual bathing and decided our cats deserved only the best. And for this decision, my husband’s life now stood in danger.

“Come here and help me,” he barked.

The drenched cat’s eyes glowed a malevolent red.

She’d been around long enough to suspect the reason she was wet and miserable in the first place probably originated with me. Now as she heard me summoned, an evil grin spread across her face.

“Um, maybe not,” I said, backing against the wall.

“I’ve got to get the rest of these suds off her,” he begged.

“Now please, come here.”

I reluctantly crossed the room. The cat flexed her right paw, extending and retracting the claw. I looked over to the corner where the kitten sat by the phone. She saw me watching her and immediately assumed the defensive Okinawa Crane pose from the Karate Kid movie. Back arched, she swayed on one foot, daring me to approach. No help there.

After ten minutes, four plastic cups, and a near-filing for divorce, we got the cat rinsed and released.

I turned to the kitten while my husband dabbed rubbing alcohol on his wounds.

“I’ll take defense, you play offense,” I told him, swatting his bottom in what I hoped was a gesture of encouragement. “Go get her, tiger!”

He abandoned dabbing and poured the alcohol over both arms, wincing.

“No. I’m not going back in.”

“But we can’t have only one clean cat!”

The look he gave me suggested I back slowly from the room.

I kept my distance from him, and the cat, who was none too pleased the kitten had escaped the watery ordeal. In fact, since this bathing episode I’ve awakened during the night with the feeling of being watched…or stalked. It turns out to be my cat perched beside me, waiting for the right moment to take revenge.

At least that’s my take. My husband says I’m imagining things and the cat has long since forgotten about the bath, but I’m not so sure.

I may have the kitten teach me that Okinawa Crane technique.

Just in case.

-16-

Jingle Ball Horrors

As a responsible pet guardian, I make sure to keep up on the latest recommendations and innovations in pet care by reading the ripped and wadded up back issues of cat magazines at my vets every six months when I herd the cats there for their biannual shots.

The most recent article I read discussed the importance of playtime with your feline companions. Pets, the article emphasized, love and rely on playtime with their owners.

It is a time of bonding and, if done regularly, will be something a pet looks forward to with excited anticipation every day.

See, here all along I had assumed our cats were happy stuffing their faces and then laying belly up in the sun for eight hour stretches. Little did I suspect that behind those full bellies and warm fur, kitty hearts were breaking because they did not have a regularly scheduled playtime with me.

I set about to remedy the situation.

Walking in the door with purchases from the pet store, I felt confident one of the bags I held contained the secret to unlocking shared fun for me and my cats. I started out simple with their favorite toy from kittenhood, the cotton mouse.

“Here kitties,” I said, dangling a bright yellow cotton mouse by its tail. “Come play.”

The cat scratched her nose in her sleep and rolled over.

I tried the kitten. “See the mouse? Want to get the mouse?”

The kitten sat up and yawned. I was encouraged. At least one of them was awake.

I dug in the bag and pulled out rubber cheese.

“Oooooh,” I exclaimed. “Look at the pretty cheese. Who wants to try and eat the pretty cheese?”

The kitten looked at the cat who gave a I have no idea but just ignore her and maybe she’ll leave shrug.

I clapped my hands. “Hey,” I announced. “You two are supposed to want to play with me, I bought all these toys, so guess what? We are going to play together. Now then.”

I pulled two identical candy-cane striped jingle balls out of the bag. Jingle, jingle. Jingle, jingle. They made a happy noise.

The cats lay back down and turned their backs to me.

“Aw, c’mon!” I begged. “One round of chase the jingle ball. Here, I’ll show you how.”

And so it was I found myself rolling a jingle ball down the hallway and running after to retrieve and roll it again 95 and again. I was panting when I returned to the cats after five rounds.

“See?” I huffed. “It’s not so…”

But they were gone. I searched the house until I found the cat munching nibbles out of the kitten’s dish and the kitten wedging herself under the dining room credenza in the hopes of hiding from me.

“Fine, you win,” I said, abandoning the toys in the middle of the floor. “We won’t play.”

Cut to two AM and my husband and I warm under the blankets and deep in our dreams.

Jingle, jingle. Jingle, jingle.

My husband rolled over. “Wass’ that?” he mumbled.

Jingle, jingle.

“I bought the cats some toys,” I said. “They didn’t like them. Just wait a minute and they’ll quit.”

Jingle, jingle. Jingle, jingle. Jingle, jingle. Jingle, jingle.

Annoying, but bearable. Bearable that is, until the cats discovered how much better the balls sounded on hardwood floors.

JNGLE JINGLE. JINGLE JINGLE. JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE

JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE.

Pause.

JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE

JINGLE.

Two hours later and there was no end in sight. Not only were the cats enthralled with their new playtime of “Chase the jingle ball,” they also discovered a love of the game “Keep Away.” As in every time we got out of bed to take the balls from them, they hid them somewhere unfindable, sitting and staring at us until we returned to bed. Then they retrieved the balls and reinstated soccer practice on the hardwoods outside our bedroom.

It’s been a week, and I still can’t find those jingle balls.

The cats obviously have some secret hiding place they won’t divulge. But I know they’re out there. Because late at night, deep in the recesses of the house, drawing closer, we hear them coming.

Jingle, jingle.

Sometimes we hold each other and cry.

Those stupid pet magazines.

-17-

The Creature Under The Fridge

At first I didn’t believe there was anything living beneath our refrigerator. I thought the cats were just messing with us.

But I reconsidered. We live in a large historic home and have had our fair run of mice over the years. Usually they enter through the large wooden cupboard next to the stove where we store our Tupperware
^®
. But the cats weren’t paying any attention to the cupboard. Their attention was focused under the fridge.

They prowled along the baseboards, sniffing so hard their bodies shook with the effort. Deep growls emanated from their throats. They would lie on the wooden floor, tails twitching, just watching, waiting.

I became wary of going near the fridge. All I could picture was a small, furry rodent scurrying over my bare foot in the morning as I reached for the orange juice. I started standing as far back from the door as possible and leaning my body in to grab whatever snack I needed before hurrying to the other side of the kitchen. The cats observed my discomfort and acted accordingly.

The next time I entered the kitchen, both cats were lying contently. But as I neared the fridge the older cat tensed her body, and scootched on her stomach closer to the fridge, peering intently beneath. Her tail whipped back and forth in warning.

“What is it?” I whispered. “Do you see the mouse?”

The cat gave me a we-have-a-situation-here look that indicated I could help most by shutting up. I scurried out of the kitchen.

The next day the kitten joined in the fun. The minute I stepped into the kitchen she raced toward the fridge and plunged both paws underneath. I leapt onto the countertop.

“What is it?” I cried. “Did you get it?” The kitten frowned and paced in front of the fridge. I decided breakfast wasn’t that important of a meal and I would just skip it. Maybe forever.

And so it went. The cats stood guard for hours at a time.

At night I would feel my way through darkened halls to the kitchen for a glass of water and there they were, waiting, their slanted eyes glittering in the pale moonlight filtering in through the window.

The cats refused to leave their guardposts, and the creature under the fridge grew in my mind to epic proportions of filth, hair, and malicious intent. I started giving the cats 101 extra snacks to keep their strength up.

“Be good girls,” I told them. “Catch the mouse for Mommy.”

I spoke to my husband about calling in an exterminator.

Or an army of them.

“What for?” he asked.

“To kill the creature under the fridge,” I said.

“What creature?” he asked.

“Oh my God, are you blind?” I said. “The cats won’t leave that spot. There is obviously some huge, horrible, fanged mutant mouse thing that has taken refuge in our home.

Probably the only reason we haven’t been eaten alive is because our babies are protecting us.”

He smirked. “The only reason the cats sit there is because you feed them every time you walk by. If I’m the only one home, they just lie around the front room.”

I stared at him, sure I heard wrong. Was he inferring that my babies would intentionally mislead me, purely for their own gain? But my husband is an intelligent and astute man, an honest man. It came down to having to believe the love of my life or thinking something slightly ill of my cats. It was a simple choice.

“You are full of it,” I told him. “I’m telling you the cats are on the scent and there is something huge and horrible under there. Now please, call in the National Guard.”

As we entered the kitchen, both cats snapped to attention.

The older cat approached the fridge and growled.

The kitten hissed and arched her back. Both peered hopefully up at me from the corners of their eyes.

Squatting on all fours, my husband peered under the fridge. Grimacing, he reached for the broom and raked out four bouncy balls coated in grime, two browned and wilted pieces of lettuce, 14 marbles (I don’t even want to hazard a guess), three pieces of pasta, and a Christmas ornament we lost two years ago.

He started to get up, took a second look, and eased the broom back under the fridge. As he drew the broom toward us, I glimpsed something brown and dirty. Then the cats were upon it. All we could see were claws, ears, and tails. I screamed, my husband tried to pull the cats away, and marbles rolled everywhere. When the cats finally separated we looked down and saw…nothing. Whatever had been pulled out was now no more than a few stray wisps of cobweb, some lint, and lunch in our cats’ stomachs.

“I told you so,” my husband and I said at the same time.

He looked at me. “There was no creature.”

I looked back. “There most certainly was. Did you not see the cats go berserk?”

“Yes, over an old mouse toy.”

“Or a man-eating rodent.”

“Was not.”

“Was too.”

“Was not.”

“Was too.”

The disagreement continues to this day. I suspect his insistence that there was nothing under the fridge is simply a manly cover to conceal his fear of the beast that almost destroyed us.

So I’ve explained to the cats that even if Daddy won’t acknowledge it, we are both extremely grateful for their saving our lives from the horrible fanged mutant creature that surely lived under our fridge.