Tag Archives: cat humor

Monday Cat Stories: The Chase

Not actually my cat, but pretty accurate

Apparently, while JR and I were at work today there was some kind of massive cat event that took place.  I can only work backward from the clues they left, but here is as much as I know:

-I had to give both of them a bath last night.  

Giving cats a bath is simultaneously horrifying and hilarious.  They look ridiculous, but they are still really sharp at five or six major cat points.  Just five.  Hm.  I had to wash them because they’ve had a mild case of the fleas for the last couple of weeks, which subsided for awhile but they were still super itchy.  So I filled up the sink with lukewarm water and plunked cat #1 (Cash, the brown cat) in to the water.  She was shocked, but docile.  She is most hilarious when she’s wet because she’s such a tiny cat.

Yuna (the gray cat) was watching this from his food dish the entire time thinking “Ahh, yes, the brown cat is pretty dirty.  Good call.  I am sure I’ll be safe over here.  Meet me in the living room in ten for some good cuddling!”  But he was next.  And this was SCARY.  He’s HUGE and his claws are like razor-sharp velociraptor talons.  He’s basically a miniature lion, and about as dumb as an ox.  So he quickly forgets that the evil monster throwing him in a sink-full of warm water is actual his human-mommy, who loves him, and wouldn’t do it if it weren’t for a damn good reason.  The howling, screaming, wailing, thrashing, hissing, coughing that ensued was a bit much for all of us.  Eventually he was so stressed (even as I was trying to get a towel around him) that I just let him jet, soaking wet, through the apartment.  Hardwood floors be damned:  we had both had enough of each other.

I thought they forgot about it by this morning when they were happily munching on their breakfast, both of their coats fluffy and clean and free of itchies.  Until…

Fast forward to 4:30pm.  The evidence is as such:

Exhibit A:  Huge pile of papers knocked on to the floor.  Various mail, folders and receipts.

Exhibit B:  Recipe folder and all recipes strewn around the floor.

Exhibit C:  Glass vase tipped over balancing precariously on the seat of a dining char.

Exhibit D:  Potting soil spread all over floor under table.

Exhibit E:  Pennies all over kitchen floor, all the way to the sink about five feet away.

Apparently while we were out the Cat-Olympics were held in the dining section of our kitchen.  I’m guessing some kind of relay race or death-defying cat chase was the main event.

Cash, The Brown Cat

 

Or maybe they just don’t like recipes…

Yuna, The Gray Cat

Or maybe they are saving up to buy some tootsie rolls at the corner store.

Or maybe they’re just really good at holding bath-related grudges.

Hey, at least this isn’t as bad as the last Monday cat debacle…

CATS: Even though it’s horrifying, it’s actually funny.

This is Bath Salts' logo, actually. But it's like what happened this morning.

I’m sorry, I just can’t not share the magic of my Monday morning with you today.

I’m someone who has lived with cats, by choice or not, for a good 24 years out of my total 28 years of life.  Considering the frequency of my exposure to cats, my exposure to gross cat things (i.e. fleas, tape worm, poo-poo, pee-pee, hair balls, dead animals being dragged home… the list goes on…) is pretty remarkably low.

Besides the errant hair ball or the random turd nuggest flung from the litter box in a fit of post-BM cat joy I’ve only had one major incident.  Until now.  Until this morning.

~~~

The year was 2007 and I was living in Watertown, MA with a rather large group of people in half of a house.  There were two cats there (one mine, one belonged to my roommate) and his cat was a major, ornery pain-in-the-whiskers.  She was this massive thing with a big, fat head and not the kind of big cat that is endearing, no — the kind of big cat that laid in wait to attack feet and other kitties just to pass away the fatty fat days until it’s time to go to cat heaven.  She was miserable – and my first introduction to a cat that I ‘didn’t like’ (although secretly I liked her, because for the two or three pats you could get in before she hissed at you she was still a sweet thing.  Sometimes.  Way down deep in there.  Plus I kinda pitied her…)

Anyways – I had just gotten a job at a furniture company in Framingham and I was super excited for my first day.  Not like any other job I’d had (ahem… it wasn’t in food service) I was just super psyched to not have the threat of ketchup stain and espresso machine burns FOR ONCE in my ding dang life.  So the night before my first day I laid out my outfit and hung it on the bedroom doorknob:  an angora sweater and a pretty, shimmery silk skirt that I had just gotten that holiday season.  Simple and understated, yet true to my need to wear comfy fabulous things whenever possible.

So I put the outfit on in the morning, drive the insufferable 10 miles on Route 9 out to Framingham, and spend the first half of the day kinda sniffing around – something wasn’t right.  Was it me?  Was it my new coworkers?  Was it my pits?  When was the last time I washed this sweater?  Pee-ew!  Something was subtly, horribly wrong.

Fast forward:  lunch time.  With more opportunity to investigate I found my skirt, which had been hanging on the doorknob outside of our bedroom all night, had been brutishly DEFILED by this big monster of a cat.  I didn’t even know lady cats sprayed.  I dunno, maybe she was a boy and I just didn’t know it.  In any case, I’d smelled like sickly ammonia cat pee for the first half of the day and would have to suffer it gladly for the second half.

Horrified, embarrassed, but seemingly undetected by my coworkers (it was a pretty subtle smell, surprisingly) I sat in wait until I could get the hell out of there.  P.S. if you are wondering – no, you can’t get cat piss out of silk:  you just have to throw it away.

~~~

Monday, January 2nd 2012:  A stinky start to the New Year.

Last night, I got super excited about seedlings.  It happens sometimes, and rarely at the right time in the year, but this is the closest I’ve been in a long time.  I whipped out the seed collection while JR was out-n-about (I love doing house-y things when I have the run of the place) and gleefully decided what I could start early, without confusing the hell out of the poor little plant.

We have a rocky patio outside that our landlord said we can use – most things will be growing in pots, anyways, so I decided to start my rosemary in two, small terra cotta pots (should be about two bushes by the time September gets here!)  I also started a really nice tray of habañeros and poblano peppers and cilantro.  Whoa!  Was I excited:  a south-of-the-border medley to ensure delicious, fresh salsas all summer long.

With my kitchen table full of promise for the future, I shut the lights and went to bed.

This morning, when I woke up the bed was so super comfy and the blankets and comforter so warm.  I didn’t want to get up!  So I procrastinated a little, set the alarm a couple times, had a really lazy go of it.  When I finally got up I did the usual routine:  teeth, clothes, splash splash, collect random items that migrated from the purse, breakfast.

So I go in the kitchen to get breakfast and while the rosemary pots are in tact, the tray of delicious, spicy salsa is DESTROYED.  My cats have dug in my plants before, usually in the middle of the summer when they’re on the deck and pretty easy to save.  However!  Seedlings that say they need to be 1/4″ from the surface mean exactly that – once a kitty goes digging around in there there’s little hope of that seed doing well.  In attempt to save what one of my cats (I’m pretty sure it was the gray one) obliterated I kind of tried to push the soil back where it was supposed to be, in hopes that maybe the seeds would go back with it.

OH GOD.

Cupped in my hand, within the layers of upturned soil, was a big, steamy CAT TURD.

OH MY GOD, OHMYGOD.

I was TOUCHING IT with my hand.

Apparently when I had laid out the seedling tray (of mouth-watering salsa ingredients) this big dummy thought that I was being a super-nice Cat Mom and putting together an entirely new litter box for the two of them.

He’s all like “Whoa!  You’re putting MINE on the kitchen table, Mom?  I love you so much!  Thank you!  I will poo in it now to show you how much I love it!”

I don’t normally talk to myself at home but I was carrying on big time as I ran over to the sink and began furiously washing my hands:  about 7 times or more.  As the water poured out of the tap, though, and I thought about it my swearing turned in to uncontrollable laughter.  His little feeble cat brain logic was spot-on, it was totally my fault my hands were covered in dookie right now!

So, my salsa seedlings will have to wait.  No big deal.  New Year’s resolution:  swear less, laugh more.  I think next time I’ll put them on top of the fridge…