by Amy Newmark
My kitten climbed my leg like a lemur. “Miss Skitters! Get down!” I grimaced as I felt the razor-like claws.
I set the bag of French fries on the table and pulled her off me. Miss Skitters’ eyes locked onto the bag like a heat-seeking missile to its target. She scrambled. I snatched the bag. Miss Skitters leaped. I couldn’t believe I was battling an adorable, gray-and-white kitten.
“No!” I said firmly, pointing.
Miss Skitters relented. Sort of. Yowling, she stalked me to the couch and intermittently attempted to nab French fries. I put her in the bedroom and shut the door.
That was only the beginning. My husband and I quickly discovered that this cat loved to eat. Anything. Potatoes, onions, lettuce. Miss Skitters never met a food she didn’t like. Every edible item required Fort Knox-style containment. She struck unattended consumables like a ravenous bear at a picnic ground.
One day, I forgot and left a package of hot-dog buns on the counter. I returned to the kitchen to find her in a frenzied feeding. Guttural sounds rattled in her throat. Bits of buns spewed from her mouth. As I grabbed her, she snagged a surviving bun and wrapped it between her front legs.
Although we kept food under lock and key, Miss Skitters mysteriously started packing on pounds. Finally, we discovered that while we were bringing home the bacon, she was eating it. Literally. While we were out, Miss Skitters was creating a buffet beneath our bed. Its existence remained unknown until I heard rustling one afternoon. I peeked under the bed and discovered Miss Skitters with her head shoved into a plastic bag. She was gnawing at an accumulated smorgasbord of rotten hot dogs, rib bones, and other delectable items. She had managed to get into the garbage can in the cupboard beneath the sink. That got locked up, too.
A couple of years later, we adopted a calico cat. My husband placed the cat bowls on opposite sides of the room — a good strategy until Miss Skitters slinked over to scarf down Little Buddy’s food, and then returned to polish off her own afterward. We had to start standing sentry over meals.
During a visit from my sister, Miss Skitters pulled off one of her stealthiest missions. While we were at work, my sister decided to vacuum. The closet that housed the vacuum cleaner also stored the cat food. Since Miss Skitters popped things open and closed with her paws, we always placed a chair in front of the door. My sister accidentally left that door ajar. Halfway through vacuuming, she remembered and hurried to the compromised location. The door had mysteriously closed. My sister opened it to find Miss Skitters inside the cat-food bag inhaling kibble.
During the entire twelve years of her life, Miss Skitters’ desire for food never ceased, nor did her cunning ability to obtain it. She pilfered a donut here and a pizza slice there, shamelessly accomplishing her mission to the very end.
~Lisa Mackinder
Pumpkin’s Magic Sweater
Some people have cats and go on to lead normal lives.
~Author Unknown
“You have the most adorable cat!” “How in the world do you get her to sit for these incredible photos?” “My cat would never let me dress her up like this!” My friends on social media are continually in awe of pictures I post of our furry little feline. I usually respond to the comments with a thank-you and a winking emoji.
We adopted Pumpkin as a tiny kitten from our local feed store where people are encouraged to bring kittens or cats in need of homes. I’d been dreaming of an orange tabby for years; when I spotted Pumpkin, it was love at first sight.
I have read that there are far more male orange tabby cats than there are females — about eighty males to every twenty females — so Pumpkin was special from the very beginning.
Because of her orange coloring, and the fact that it was nearing Halloween, we decided that Pumpkin would be the perfect name for her.
Soon after bringing our beautiful, big-eared, little kitten home, we made an appointment with the local veterinary clinic to have her spayed. When we picked up Pumpkin after the surgery, the vet handed me a plastic cone collar to protect her stitches.
As I slipped the unappealing apparatus over her tiny head and tied the gauze laces, she looked up at me with those big, pleading green eyes, and I caved. Off it came, and I was forced to find an alternative solution to protect her incision.
That first day, the kitten was too groggy to be bothered with checking out her sutures. However, I knew she couldn’t be trusted during the night.
To keep the cat cozy, I put her in the new pink, knitted turtleneck sweater I’d picked out especially for her at the pet store. Coincidentally, it was long enough to completely cover her fragile surgical site. “Hmm,” I mused, “this might just be the answer.”
I took her to bed that night, where she lay next to me without moving an inch — very similar to a swaddled newborn baby. It worked perfectly!
There was no need to put the sweater on her during the day since I could keep an eye on her, but she wore it every night and never once stirred in bed.
A couple of weeks after Pumpkin’s incision was completely healed, we woke up to about six inches of fluffy snow. I grabbed the sweater, slipped it over her head, and out the sliding glass door we headed, eager to capture some photos of the kitten’s first snowfall.
I set her down on the snow-covered patio where she sank quickly and was nearly buried in the deep powder — not exactly the picture I had in mind. So we ventured about the acreage checking out other sites for our first wintertime photo shoot. I posed her on an old, snow-covered log, and later atop a huge, snowy rock with a backdrop of snow-covered shrubbery. She was so well behaved, remaining magically motionless — like a statuette. I couldn’t have asked for a better little model.
When we returned to the house, I set the kitten on the kitchen floor where she sat motionless.
“Oh, Pumpkin, I think you may have gotten too cold,” I cried as I ran for her blanket on the couch. When I set it next to her, she made no attempt to lie down; instead, she just sat there staring at me.
I thought it best to ignore her for a few minutes while I grabbed a cup of hot coffee and some freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies. The coffee warmed me up in a hurry, which prompted me to wonder if maybe Pumpkin was too warm as well.
I scurried across the kitchen to find her still sitting motionless. After carefully pulling the sweater over her tiny, furry head, I watched in amazement as she quickly darted off to her food and water dishes.
We took more pictures outside in the snow the following day, and she was just as cooperative as the day before. She certainly appeared to be a lovely, sweater-girl model in the making.
Throughout the holiday season, I captured adorable shots of our little sweater-clad feline sporting everything from reindeer antlers to Santa hats. Whether beneath the brightly decorated tree, on Santa’s lap, or posing with the grandchildren, Pumpkin never tried to escape the camera’s flash.
Then, one day, it dawned on me — Pumpkin always remained exactly where I left her until I removed her sweater. She not only refused to walk while wearing the sweater; she wouldn’t budge an inch. Instead of lying down when she got tired, she simply fell over. No amount of bribing could coax her into taking even a single step.
I decided to conduct a little experiment to determine whether she was trying extra hard to please me while dressed in her photo-shoot attire, or if the sweater was actually responsible for her exceptionally compliant attitude. After posing the sweater-less kitten on the wooden landing of her scratching post, I grabbed my camera and squatted down just in time to capture the unexpected photo — an airborne feline!
Following several failed attempts to get a good picture, it became painfully apparent — all the magic was in the sweater! She was completely mesmerized while wearing it, forcing her to stay wherever and however I chose to place her. So much for my beautifully behaved kitten!
On the bright side, the sweater has worked to my advantage for nearly a decade, and she has never once resisted when I put it on her. However, until this day, I have not divulged my se
cret as to how I’m able to photograph Pumpkin in a variety of awesome poses; rather, I’ve allowed everyone to believe it is simply her sweet, gentle nature.
I feel a bit guilty for keeping the secret all these years, and can only hope our little, furry girl’s photos will continue to be appreciated on social media now that I have let the cat out of the bag.
~Connie Kaseweter Pullen
The Great Chicken War
People that don’t like cats haven’t met the right one yet.
~Deborah A. Edwards
When I first saw Cloud, I wasn’t sure what to think. With his overly large eyes, his extra long tail, and the bits of fluff popping out from his ears, he was a strange sight. In fact, I even scrolled past his picture on Facebook. My childhood cat had just passed, and I was broken-hearted, but this strange, little creature didn’t seem like the right one to fix it.
A week later, his picture popped up again. He was days away from being taken to a pound, where he might have faced a grim future. With teary eyes, I showed his picture to my grandma, with whom I was living at the time, and asked if we could bring him home to live with us. The house seemed lonely without a cat, even with our three dogs.
Reluctantly, she agreed as long as he would count as my Christmas gift and I kept his litter cleaned. That seemed like a good deal to me. Plus, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t also wanted to get him to impress my new boyfriend, who loved cats too.
Within a few days, the kitten came home to live with us. I was incredibly happy until I realized how absolutely crazy kittens are. His favorite thing was to silently wait by my face as I slept and then sink his sharp, little claws into my face as I woke up. I quickly learned the best course of action was to pull a pillow over my face and sit up before opening my eyes. It was a lesson learned the hard way, of course. Luckily, it was something he grew out of.
Unfortunately, my grandma’s dogs were not as lucky as I was. The Cocker Spaniel, in particular, was a favorite plaything of Cloud’s. He would lie in wait for Puddles to walk by before silently leaping from the shadows to grab onto the dog’s neck and nip his ear. At first, Puddles thought this was great fun. Finally, someone actually wanted to play with him! The other two dogs were party poopers that never wanted to do anything but eat and nap.
Puddles enjoyed the attention until Cloud got older. His claws got sharper, his teeth got bigger, and he became far more accurate with his attacks. Eventually, Puddles learned his best course of action was to ignore Cloud altogether.
This strategy worked for a short time, but Cloud was determined to find another way to get the dog’s attention. That’s when he realized that all of Puddles’ love and devotion were going to his yellow rubber chicken. He was always playing with it.
One day, while Grandma and Puddles were playing fetch, she threw long, and the chicken accidentally landed in the bathtub. Cloud saw this as an opportunity to strike. He ran faster than Puddles and hopped into the tub before the dog even knew what was going on. Puddles began to sniff frantically for his toy. He knew it went that way. When he finally caught onto the scent, he realized where it had landed. As soon as he leaned his face over the side of the tub, WHAP! Cloud, who was sitting on the chicken, smacked him right in the face.
That began the Great Chicken War. Every opportunity after that, if Cloud noticed Puddles had left the chicken unattended, he would strike. Sometimes, the dog would run around the house for a good ten minutes looking for his chicken.
But Cloud’s favorite time to attack was when Puddles was outside. You see, the dog wasn’t allowed to take his toys outside because he would never bring them back in. He would just drop them in front of the door in order to be able to grab them easier on his way in. We had a fenced-in back yard and a door that led right to it from our house, so the dogs were allowed to run around for a while, and then they’d scratch at the door when they wanted in.
So, whenever Puddles was outside and staring in through the glass, Cloud would come over and sit right next to the chicken, just letting Puddles know that he could touch it whenever he wanted to. He would stretch over it, slap at it, and even lie on top of it. Thinking back on it now, maybe it was also Cloud’s way of being spiteful because the dogs were allowed outside, and he wasn’t.
After peaceful negotiations — also known as the purchase of an additional chicken — the Great Chicken War came to an end. That wasn’t to say Puddles didn’t steal whichever chicken Cloud dared to sit by to add to his growing toy horde, but things were far less tense between the two. It was no longer the end of the world for Cloud to touch the chicken.
Eventually, Ian and I moved away from Grandma’s house, and Cloud became an only child. He seemed nervous at first, but quickly became his crazy self again, only now we are the targets. He always knows how to make me feel better with his crazy antics. I may not have known it when I first saw him, but he was exactly what I needed. And he even outgrew his funny looks and became quite the handsome cat! I wouldn’t change him for the world.
~C. E. DeRosier
The Voice of Authority
Cats are independent, by which I mean smart.
~Dave Berry
We like to think — despite much evidence to the contrary — that we are in charge of our cats. It’s not true, of course. We just flatter ourselves with the illusion that we’re in charge. And if we believe in that illusion a little too much, we can find ourselves in a lot of trouble.
Fortunately, we don’t really need to be in charge of our cats because our cats are quite capable of directing the course of events themselves. I learned that lesson on an occasion when our elder cat demonstrated — in no uncertain terms — that she was the one in charge of a situation.
This happened a long time ago, during one summer when I was home from college. My mom had decided that all the window screens in our apartment needed to be cleaned. That meant the screens would have to be removed, and all of our home’s windows would need to be wide open during at least part of the day.
That presented a problem because it meant our cats, W.T. and Gus, would have to be kept away from those open windows, lest they got too excited and tried their luck at some two-story skydiving. Since both my mom and my sister were going to be at work all day, that meant it fell to me — and me alone — to corral the cats into the safety of the bathroom, the only room in the apartment that would escape the open-window treatment.
When the window washer arrived, I sprang into action and began the roundup.
I grabbed W.T. first. She was a veteran member of the household, and the days when she would resist such treatment were long in the past. She calmly acquiesced to her fate, allowing me to carry her to the bathroom and close her into temporary detention without a struggle.
Gus, on the other hand, was having none of it.
Our Gus had only been with us about a year at that point, and he was still young, nervous, and mildly distrustful. Indeed, the confinement plan had been conceived for his sake in the first place, since no one took it for granted that the excitable Gus would have the sense to avoid jumping out of an open window.
Unfortunately, Gus had been paying attention when I picked up W.T. and placed her in the bathroom; he knew something was up, and he was determined to avoid a similar fate. As soon as I made a move to grab him, he took off.
As you surely know, chasing down a young, nervous cat all by oneself is nearly impossible. And our apartment’s layout made things worse, allowing Gus to make an easy escape every time I tried to corner him. Soon, Gus and I were going around in circles, with me chasing him from the dining room, into the hallway, through the kitchen, and back into the dining room.
All the while, Gus was yowling louder and louder, and running faster and faster through the circuit of rooms. My own panic rose in tandem with his. I could easily envision this frightened cat bolting straight for the nearest escape should the window washer choose to open the wrong window at the wrong moment.
I had no hope of catching Gus, and I knew
it. Out of breath and lagging behind, barely able to call Gus’s name to beg him to stop, I was just about to give up, break off the chase, and tell the window washer to cancel the job. But then, as we passed the bathroom door, the voice of authority intervened.
From within the bathroom came a call that brought Gus to an immediate halt. He turned and faced the bathroom door, answering the call with an uncertain cry of his own.
From behind the door, W.T. responded with another call — a distinctive, drawn-out meow that was clearly both reassuring and commanding at the same time. While the two cats shared another vocal exchange, I caught up to my runaway cat. I opened the bathroom door just wide enough to see W.T. standing near the doorway. She meowed again, and Gus — suddenly calm and relaxed — obeyed her unmistakable command and entered the bathroom. I shut the door and breathed an immense sigh of relief. The cats were safe, the work could go forward, and I had a chance to sit down and catch my breath.
A skeptic might say that W.T. did not call Gus into the bathroom. One might contend that Gus just heard the voice of another cat, and in his panic sought the company of another of his own kind. Simple instinctual behavior, and nothing more.
I tend to be a skeptic myself, but I can’t agree with that opinion. I witnessed this event, and I know what I saw and heard. W.T. did not just randomly meow from the bathroom; everything in her behavior indicated that she recognized what was going on and took charge of the situation. I could hear it in her voice. And, thankfully, Gus could hear it, too. Otherwise, I might still be chasing him through those rooms.
No, we are not in charge of our cats; they are in charge of themselves. And, when necessary, they can run the show on their own. I know that now, and I am grateful that, when I was faced with an unsolvable problem, the voice of authority was there to save the day.
~Stephen Taylor
The Designing Cat
Who hath a better friend than a cat?