Slowly, over the course of the last couple of years, our cats have slowly begun the process of methodically and systematically planning our death. The how’s and why’s are still unfolding, but the overall reality of the situation has really started to sink in. This is where they slipped up though. The chaos of the remodel made them heady with arrogance. Gave them a false sense of security wherein they got sloppy, and ultimately, let us on to their plan.
It’s no big secret that I am not exactly a cat person. Maybe it is because I am so selfish and, aside from Stella, I can’t let anyone in our immediate living space be more selfish than me. Maybe it is just a battle of wills that I am not willing to concede. Maybe it’s that cats are petulant and could honestly care less if you are around — unless of course, they want something. Although dogs come with some similar baggage in regards to cleanliness and naughty behavior, they at least seem to have some modicum of earnest interest in you, and seem to actually, well, like you. Like, if they were people, the dog would walk in and say “Hey dude, what’s up? Missed you. Glad you’re home.” and the cat would walk in and say “Ugh. You. Could you at least make yourself useful and pet me, feed me or do something otherwise useful with that tiny brain of yours?” Both of our cats have a certain way of looking at you like you are a total idiot.
Little did we know that when we gave Boris his name, it would be the most appropriate moniker to be bestowed on a pet. Ever. If Boris were a person he would be a large, dark-eyed Eastern European — probably in the Mafia. He would speak broken english with a thick accent and would have ordered thousands to be iced for accidentally brushing past him on the street. Boris, the European, would have spent a lot of time and energy establishing his turf — extorting and blackmailing people as a matter of course. In the real world, our tuff guy has taken to spraying everything he comes in contact with. New stove: spray it. Inside of Stella’s caterpillar tube: spray it. New kitchen cabinets: spray it. South panel of the passion vines: spray it — everytime you walk by it. We get it dude; you own the place.
As for cute, diminutive Rosie — or as we refer to her: the serial killer living among us. Don’t believe me? When our neighbors ‘cat-sat’ for us over the holidays we came back to not only a sweet, little grey kitty who wouldn’t leave our sides, but also a house covered in feathers from one end to the other and a note from our neighbors indicating they had renamed her Charlie (yes, as in Manson). During the course of our absence they were forced to clean up the remnants of not one, not two, but up to three birds in a single day. And that this happened *every day that we were gone*! We belled her — with two bells, no less — only to find that, as Steve put it, now she hunts the deaf birds. Aside from her quest to eliminate the entire avian population in the greater Humboldt County area (sorry, Andrea), her single-minded determination to completely shred every piece of furniture we own has taught me that having all your furniture covered in sticky tape just isn’t really worth it.
Nothing any of you cat-lovers out there (and I know that pretty much everyone reading this post is seething with cat-loving thoughts right now) can convince me that ours are not, as we speak, mapping the unraveling of our existence.
Note to Boris and Rosie and all your brethren: I’m on to you.
