Life in a Cat House

First published July 29, 2005

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.

All three of the cats we have right now are female. Since they have all been “fixed,” this was really only important when it came to naming them: “Muffin,” a.k.a. “Muffer;” “Libby,” a.k.a. “The Phantom;” and Mindy,” a.k.a. “I’m Not Fat, I’m Just Fluffy.”

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