Cat Tales

Early in our marriage, we had a vested interest in staving off parenthood.   First we were starving graduate students.  Then, I was on the cusp of a career and my husband was pursuing a long-term residency in oral and maxillofacial surgery.  We were having a tough enough time taking care of ourselves and making ends meet, not to mention living in a vibrant but expensive city.   My parents managed to hold their tongues for a year or two.  After that, the fact that we had not produced offspring became a topic of criticism.  There was a popular T-shirt back in the equality-enlightened mid-80s that featured a comic-book character in a display of deep angst.  The caption said, “I can’t believe it.  I forgot to have children.”  My mother thought this was made for me.

This is why a hyper-allergic girl like me agreed to have cats.

As grandchildren go, this was not what my mother had in mind.   Nonetheless, walking through a mall one day we did the unthinkable: we bought a kitten from a pet store.  We did not plan to buy a kitten.  My husband pulled me in just to take a look, trying to convince me that I could love a fur ball.  The clerk invited us in to a pen where a dozen little kitties were corralled.  The tiniest orange kitten walked up to my foot, turned his sweet face up at mine, and said, “Meow.”  It was all over but the paperwork.

I thought this little guy belonged in our family, especially because he had red hair like his “father’s.”  We named him Crouton because he was the runt of the litter—a tiny little crumb.  I rushed home from work every night just to sit with him.  If I laid down on the couch to watch TV, he would climb onto my chest to listen to my heartbeat and purr.  Having grown up without pets, I never experienced this type of bonding.  Instead of quelling the maternal instincts, it fanned the fire.

About a year later, my husband brought home a flyer for more kittens.  Someone had a bunch of purebred seal point Siamese cats that were going fast.  “Let’s just take a look,” he begged me.  I was hardly surprised when we came home with yet another feline.  She appeared regal, so we named her Chelsea, thinking that a haughty name suited her.  

It was a few weeks early to take Chelsea from her mother, but the sellers were given an ultimatum from their landlord.  Thus, we grabbed her lest she go to another family.  Back at home, she took a shine to Crouton, who despite his lack of female parts, was happy to play mother to the new little critter.  We came home each day to find the two curled up together.  Crouton would groom little Chelsea’s fur loyally, and Chelsea would latch on to Crouton’s vestigial nipples and suck with all her might.  After about three weeks together, we discovered that Crouton’s underside was quite raw, his fur rubbed away to reveal several swollen bumps.  Needless to say, during a particular scene in Ben Stiller’s Meet the Parents, we nearly died of laughter.

As her pedigree promised, Chelsea grew into a beautiful animal:  gorgeous seal point coat and haunting, clear blue eyes.  As is sometimes the case with this variety of Siamese, Chelsea looked at me knowingly.  So deliberate were her looks and gestures, it often seemed as if she were trying to beam a message directly to my brain.  And yet, by all evidence she was a daft animal.  She was independent and untrainable— characteristics that seemed to betray a lack of intelligence rather than a strength of will.  She did not run to the bowl when dinner was served.  She did not obey the litter protocol to which Crouton conformed infallibly.   She lived with a practiced indifference to convention that came only with generations of inbreeding.

Underestimating her intelligence turned out to be a grave mistake.

After many years and a cross-country move, we were happily situated in Atlanta with two kids and two cats.   Although Crouton and Chelsea were house cats, Crouton learned to run around the neighborhood after breakfast and come home at night for dinner.  He would stand up at the kitchen door and ask to go out: “Meow!”  I heard from a neighbor that he would sometimes spend time in her basement (she made the mistake of giving him some milk).  If I opened the back door and shook the large Tupperware container filled with cat food, Crouton would come racing home in a matter of minutes.  Chelsea, however, refused to go out.  She simply sat on her pillow assuming a regal pose and blinked her pretty blue eyes.

When we traveled, the cats presented a dilemma.  If we took out the kennels to transport them to “Kitty Camp” they disappeared.   Eventually, we hired a Nanny to help with the kids; she helped to feed cats while we were away.  But on one occasion, we needed to go away at the same time as the Nanny’s vacation.  The vet told us that cats eat only until they are full.  Thus, you can portion out enough food (and water) for the number of days you are away and simply leave the cats in the house.

   

Since this advice came from a reliable source, we decided to try it.  We set out on a nine day ski trip, leaving the cats alone but well cared for.  We closed all the doors to the bedrooms and bathrooms.   We measured out enough food for our time away plus some extra, left many bowls of water, and filled an extra litter box--staging the kitchen as “kitten central.”  Crouton looked disturbed as we packed and shuffled luggage around in the house; Chelsea sat on a sliver of sun that cut across the hard-wood floor, batting her eyelashes and looking away.  With a final scratch on the heads—from which Chelsea recoiled—we alarmed the house and left.

When we returned, we opened the door and instantly regretted not leaving more food.  Every morsel was consumed.  Had we not left enough?  Crouton was not there to welcome us as usual, so we brought in our bags and went on a search and rescue mission.  Chelsea was nowhere in sight, but Crouton was sitting on the floor outside our bedroom.  Did he choose that particular spot because he missed us?  He was, literally, twice his normal size, explaining what happened to all the food we left.  Still we could not find Chelsea.  We began to think that maybe Crouton had eaten her.  We scoured the house, looking under the sofas and chairs, behind the curtains, inside the pantry—no sign of her.

Bringing the luggage upstairs, we took our bags into our bedroom.  When we opened the door to our room, Chelsea came sauntering out, turning her head around to blink in our direction before ambling down the stairs and out of view.  We looked at each other perplexed, then reviewed our departure routine.  We were certain all the doors to the bedrooms were closed when we left.  We were also sure that Chelsea had been in full view on the living room floor when we alarmed the house and closed the door.  It was then we began to realize that when we reprimanded confused kids for slamming doors, it had actually been Chelsea using her gifted Siamese paws to push them shut.  We now stumbled upon her ability to stand on her hind legs and turn the antique knobs to open the doors.  Our feline princess decided to upgrade herself to a private room—safe from the domineering Crouton—without knowing that we were not coming home for over a week.

There was one major problem with Chelsea’s plan:  she could open doors in but not out.  Once she opened our bedroom door and closed it behind her, she was stuck.  As we processed this reality, we began to wonder how long Chelsea had been prisoner in our bedroom.  Had she gone without food for over a week?  It certainly looked as if Crouton had feasted on more than his fair share.  Then a darker reality set in.  There was no litter box in our bedroom.  That’s when we discovered a discreet little puddle in the corner of the bathroom and a more disturbing pile of turds planted in the middle of our queen-sized bed.

As it is with pets and children, the parents are left to clean up the mess.  We required a brand new mattress and boxspring, and a new set of linens.  More importantly, Chelsea taught us who was boss.  Ever obedient, we never tried that again.

Tomorrow's blog:  A Gift for the Girl Who Has Everything