Ha ha ha, that's hyperbole, right? Isn't it? ISN'T IT?
GEE, I DON'T KNOW, YOU TELL ME.
Incidentally, do all moms at some point say they're going to "run away?" I remember my Mom saying it. It was probably during some bullshit situation whereby she had just finished vacuuming the whole house, AGAIN, had some long-cook, good square meal THAT NEEDED TO BE FLIPPED EVERY HALF HOUR going in the oven, was in the midst of running up and down doing laundry, making our slovenly beds with her smoldering ashtray and an all-day-long cup of coffee for sipping parked firmly on one of our dressers, bent over at the waist (not the knees, people) picking lint off the carpet and then we rolled in from school, peeled our smelly socks off and dropped them INSIDE OUT on the tv room floor, left every juice and milk cup we ever used in some room far away from the kitchen, chowed some cakey, cookie, crumbly snack all over the couch, tossed our skid-marked underpants on the bathroom floor when we got our jammies on, and had the KID BALLS to roll our eyes when we were asked to not leave our school bags right in the middle of the room. It was probably RIGHT ABOUT THEN, that Mom would say;
"THAT'S IT. I'M GOING TO RUN AWAY."
"NOOOO, MOM! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Oh wait--was that my MOM'S life, or is that MY LIFE? Oh my--blurred lines indeed.
Anyhoo, as I was saying, my cat drives me to a dark, dangerous mental place, and I'm going to make you go there for a few minutes too.
First of all, isn't the WHOLE PURPOSE of having pets to REDUCE STRESS, and be lavished upon with so much damn unconditional pet love that you won't even care when you ask your pre-teen for a hug, but they're "too busy" looking up some really inane vine on youtube, that all you have to do is turn to that pet to fill in all the holes in your life? Isn't THAT THE IDEA???
Okay, well not here. I'm trapped day in, day out with a completely mental, nearly 17 year old cat. This is making you unhappy. You're thinking I'm obviously a jerk. Well, herewith I shall make my case.
don't be fooled. She's only sleeping because she's finally worn herself out from being mental. |
If I'm sitting down having my coffee, and reading entertaining and thought-provoking things with my laptop on my lap, she is the most loving, snuggy, ridiculous LADY LOVE BEAST ever. Problem is, I can't sit there all day. If I'm not sitting with her, she's following me around the house, yowling at me all day. She won't sleep otherwise. If I ignore the yowling, she runs into the living room to howl. Then if that doesn't work, she comes over and starts drinking her water. For freaking ages. Then she puts her paw in her water. Then she splashy splashes water onto the floor near her water bowl. Then we humans who will NEVER LEARN, walk by and get the soak sock. In the meantime, she's putting little wet footprints everywhere.
She's obsessed with water. In the cold months condensation forms on the living room window; the window being behind the love seat. With a metal vertical blind over it. Picture yourself sitting there peacefully and suddenly CLANGCLANGCLANG!!!!! JESUS CHRIST, WHAT'S HAPPENING?! Oh, silly me, it's the cat, clattering around behind the couch so she can get under the blind and LICK THE WINDOW. Then she comes back out. Then you relax. Then five minutes later SHE'S BACK DOING IT AGAIN. Then she comes out. Then you relax. CLANGCLANGCLANG SHE'S DOING IT AGAIN. Licking that window all winter. You can't put your water glass on the little side tables beside the couch. She'll stick her head right in there.
Big deal, the cat likes water. Yeah.
Yeah.
She's also food obsessed. That's a thing. I looked it up: cats who are food obsessed. For years she happily ate the healthy dry food we gave her. And then she turned 15 and said "fuck that." So, silly moi, I thought; "what the hell--she's an old lady now. She deserves to be SPOILED."
She get a little can of fancy feast at breakfast--but not the whole can. If you give her the whole can, she'll get disgusted, reject it altogether and meow at you either until the Earth explodes, or you give up, scoop that rejected food out and get her something new. So, you give her a good heaping tablespoon. Then in an hour you give her the rest. She gets a snack at 2 PM. She TECHNICALLY starts to become idiotic and relentless at 1 PM, but you're TRYING TO KEEP HER TO A SCHEDULE BECAUSE SHE'S FOOD OBSESSED. Her snack is 1/3 of a can of the cheapest water-packed tuna you can buy. You TRIED to be nice one time and buy her a nice can of quality tuna, but she rejected it, and bugged you until your eyes bled, so you just stick to the cheap stuff. At 5 PM, she's back again for her dinner. I have learned that it does NOT matter if she still has some tuna left for snacking. Dinner is more fancy feast and it goes in her CAT DISH. Tuna goes on her SNACK PLATE. You know--the plate that she'll come to several times in those 5 hours or so prior to snack time to LICK, even though there's nothing on it. Finally she gets a full can of fancy feast again at bed time. In the meantime, there is always a very nutritious, high-quality dry food in the other side of her two-sided cat food dish. But she won't touch it.
In the meantime, if I'm making dinner, she'll come into the kitchen and move around to sniff EVERY SPECK on the kitchen floor to see if it's something good for eating. And she'll meow at me. And stare at me with those ROUND, UNBLINKING EYES. It's hella annoying.
Every day after I take the kids to school she yells at me to take her out for an eye-wateringly boring session of her walking around the back yard chewing on grass.
If I leave clean clothes in a laundry basket on the floor for too long without putting them away, she will decide occasionally that that is a delightful place to take a piss. Once a plastic bag of vacuum cleaner parts was on the basement floor beside the dryer and she decided that was a fantastic place to take a piss. A pile of towels that needs to be washed? FABULOUS PLACE TO EMPTY YOUR CAT BLADDER.
She follows me every where I go. And stares at me. And howls outside the bathroom door if I try to take a wizz. With all due respect to my dog-loving friends, if I truly wanted that kind of attention, I'd have gotten a DOG.
We put her down the basement at 10 PM every night. I can't tell you what a relief it is. I give her psychotic little cat head a kiss goodnight, give her a hug, and wish her a good night. She has a warm, cozy little cat bed on a pink fluffy blanky down there on a futon (is that where all futons go to die--the basement?). Every day at 5 AM, she CLANGS up onto the dryer to HOWL AND YOWL in this most disgusting cat voice toward the one basement window. It's a nice, startling way to be awoken every day.
YAAAAAAY! WHO NEEDS A ROOSTER! ALMOST TIME TO GET UP!
So yeah, I actually have fantasies of running away from my pet. A KITTY CAT FOR FUCK'S SAKE. Judge that as you will.