Cats are clever and sometimes they can be pretty tricky. This is something it has been my misfortune to find out over the years of living nose to nose with THE HEIFER.
The love and attention she pays to me just before her mealtime would rival a Harlequin Romance. She gets her wet cat food in the morning and in the evening she gets treats – Temptations is the brand, in case anyone is planning to do up a gift basket.
As my working hours differ from week to week, feeding time could be when I arrive home at 8 am, or when I get up for dayshift at 4 am. Regardless of the time, THE HEIFER is starving and while weak from lack of food, she can still put on a good show.
4 am – I rise and stumble into the office here at home – my base of operations. It has double French doors which are usually open (this is important – later). I sit in the chair, sip a coffee and try to think of an excuse not to go to work. Diphtheria; nope, used that one last week. Tuberculosis; hmm, too contagious, might cause a panic. Whooping Cough; too much work, I’d have to whip up some whoop and I don’t have any. So maybe I’ll just go to work.
It’s about then I’ll feel the claws on my knees. That would be THE HEIFER. She’ll stretch her front legs and hook her claws into my pajamas/skin/tendons/bone, depending on how long I have been ignoring her pleas for food. The first attempt is usually very polite, with claws just dusting into the cloth and a small Meow; a gentle reminder that she is getting weaker and may not be able to keep this up much longer.
I usually ignore this one because I am lazy and overworked. The next attempt comes quickly and the claws go a bit deeper, enough to elicit a verbal response from me along with the removal of said claws from my legs.
Usually at this point I will give in. She’s hungry, I get it. When I leave the office, the other cat (the fuzzy one who needs a haircut) is sitting on Bru’s computer just outside the office door, a bit like Snoopy on top of his doghouse. This one doesn’t have to do anything. THE HEIFER takes the morning shift and the little one reaps the benefits. She just sits on the computer to make sure that everything gets done. Standing Six they call it in crime circles.
So the two of them get fed and they disappear to their respective spots to sleep it off. THE HEIFER prefers to sleep on the back of the couch just after a meal and if she ever actually gets down off there, the cushions resemble the bars of a phone, the first one being very low and the other two sitting up much higher. Might be because of her weight. Hard to tell.
The little one retires back to the office and rolls herself into something ball-like, but the head is upside down, a paw is over the face area and the tail is tucked in. Sometimes the only point of reference is the collar and I use that to identify the rest of the body parts until I am sure I have a whole cat. Then I am satisfied and I move on.
In the late afternoon, THE HEIFER begins campaigning for treats in much the same way but this time she hits up Bru and me back to back. He is able to give treats and she knows it. She does the claws in the knee thing for treats too but she usually reserves that for me. Treats are an ongoing crusade and she must have her wits about her for the entire evening if she’s going to play both of us and get as many as she can.
She will push her dish out into the middle of the kitchen floor, then hold it up with one claw, letting it kind of dangle there, hoping that we are watching. We usually are. If she suspects that we aren’t, she will drop the dish so that it clatters around on the floor, making a huge racket and causing nervous tics in both of my eyes. Sometimes I will walk into the kitchen and just see the lonely little dish sitting in the middle of the floor and realize that she tried, she really tried, and she was all alone and simply gave up. I almost feel sorry for her. Almost.
After Bru is settled for the night and she knows she is down to one provider, she will stay close to the office, often settling in on a dining room chair – dark room, black cat. It is the perfect set up. As I innocently leave the office to refresh my coffee supply, she will let out this Serengeti Howl, the likes of which has never been heard before, not even in the Serengeti. This is followed by a huge THUMP as she gets off the chair.
Even now, just writing about it, I feel shaky and unsettled. She is out there RIGHT NOW. The trouble is, by the time I walk out there to get something, I will have forgotten that she’s there (why am I whispering?) and she will scare me again. Dear God, someone, help me.
We’re not done. We have to cover Evil.
THE HEIFER knows when she only has me to dispense the treats and I am too busy working on the computer to leave the office with any regularity. She is ready for that eventuality too. She has two fixes for my lack of devotion and neither of them are pretty.
The open French doors in the office. After several attempts at getting treats from the adult female with no response, and her lawyer isn’t answering THE HEIFER’s texts, things will quiet down for a while. I may have heard the dish clatter out in the kitchen and she may have come into the office and used the claws, but I haven’t responded. She is out there, plotting and scheming but I am deep into what I am doing and I am not paying attention.
Then, I will be typing on the computer and THE HEIFER will throw her front paws against the one French door, whereby the wood part of the door will smash against my desk, whereby my bowels will involuntarily evacuate and the last I see of her is those two big ‘waddles’ on her stomach as she is trotting away. Evil. She doesn’t expect treats, there will be no treats and she does this purely for punishment since she has decided that even if she got treats at this late hour, they wouldn’t taste good anyway because they will have been tainted by my poor attitude. Evil.
Fast forward. I have again resisted her attempts at treats, likely I am the only one available to provide same, I haven’t left the office in a couple of hours so I haven’t been able to see the dish in the middle of the floor, I haven’t been victim to the Serengeti Howl, I’ve just been inattentive and rude. Then I feel her soft fur against my legs followed immediately by the soft alarm of the lower freezer from the fridge in the kitchen. THE HEIFER has opened the freezer and then actually come to me to confess and HEY, AS LONG AS YOU’RE GOING OUT THERE ANYWAY TO CLOSE THAT DOOR, YOU MAY AS WELL TOSS A FEW TREATS IN MY DISH ON THE WAY BY. Pure Evil.
This second little barrage will also result in no treats and she’s fine with that too. On my way back from closing the freezer door I have even sunk so low as to pick up the treat bag and shake it in her face and then put it down and keep walking, giving her a lecture about Bad Cats, to which I’m sure she’s listening carefully and now wishes she hadn’t opened the freezer in the first place (Hah-right). From there we both exit to our respective corners, satisfied with our own behavior, and ready to have another go at it all tomorrow night.