we all do, mom
I don’t care what hilarious World of Warcraft machinima videos set to Avenue Q songs you’ve been listening to, everyone knows the reason that the internet was invented was so that people could share photos of their cats. Yes, I know I just made a post about lolcats, but this is different. These are not lolcats, expertly-chosen photos of animals in compromising positions paired with hilarious repartee. These are your grandmother’s cat pictures. Grainy, overexposed, possibly taken with a cell phone. Cute, but never really capturing the essence of why this animals is fantastic. Unless you’re this immensely talented actress. She’ll take any cat photos you have on offer.* These are the cats the internet was designed to host.
Oh, and stories. I like to brave /an/ on 4chan every now and again out of boredom, and tonight there was a jewel of thread: “Post weird things your pets do.”
Now, sometimes I think my cats are the craziest creatures ever, until I remember that other cats also exist. Not everyone realises this base assumption: that animals are crazy bastards. As such, there were a few fairly tame “quirks,” like:
My cat doesn’t use the cat perch unless she wants cat nip.
or
One of my dogs will bark and move its legs as if it’s running when she sleeps. My other for some reason likes to get in trouble no matter how many times you tell her no, she will even look at you to show you what she is about to do.
Man. Talk about weird! I bet only 80% of the rest of the species do those things! I shouldn’t complain, though, because some of the posts were downright worrying:
My cat occasionally walks like a crab. He will turn corners by drifting.
and
my cat likes to eat vaseline. I have to move it to the top shelf every time she gets into my room, I don’t know what happened to the cap.
Although partially worrying about the second is that contributor’s apparently frequent use of vaseline.
In any case, I tend to try to check myself when thinking about my cats as especially bizarre, and it’s true that a lot of their strangeness was echoed in that post, like Cubby’s love of muffin wrappers, the habit Blaster has of scratching everything BUT the cat litter when he’s done using the litterbox, and a non-cat related weirdness regarding a suicidal loach (really, how many people other than me and this dude can have owned a suicidal loach?). However, there were some things that weren’t covered, which I feel would be unkind to keep to myself.
this is him
Let’s begin with the primarily sane cat, Cubby. Cubby/Cubs/Cubbers/Sir Cubbington is the younger of my two cats, he’s a black-on-black tabby with occasional white tufts (his siblings were identical to Blaster) who weighs in at a solid 20 pounds. He’s essentially the definition of gentle giant: you could do anything to this cat and he wouldn’t raise a finger to you. I can bathe this monster by myself without him escaping or me incurring injury. You can turn him upside down and use him like a barbell and he’ll just look at you with sad acquiescence. “It’s okay, mom. I trust you, mom,” he seems to say. “I don’t like it, but if you say so.”
see, i can even do this to him
Cubby is not without his assertive moments, though. While he tends to let out a terrified mouse-like squeak when frightened, he will insist on having some things his way, or else. For example, he will not be left out of the bathroom if it’s time for a shower. Cubby is a thirsty cat, who will in every case choose to drink hot water (not warm – hot) over cool or room temperature water**, and the shower is his favourite place to get it. He will perch himself precariously on the rounded edge of my tub and stick his head in to drink the water as it falls.
sadly, this is what most of cubby's pictures look like
Furthermore, he demands a sacrifice of water wrung from my hair to drink before he will quit the bathroom. Apparently hairwater is delicious, because lately Blaster’s taken to haunting the bathroom during showertime, as well, and nibbling at my hair as I dry off.
Perhaps most notable, however, is Cubby’s breath-smelling fixation. It began as he was a kitten, when I would cuddle with him in bed. Back then, he was small enough to sleep next to my head without suffocating me. This is no longer the case, but Cubby can’t take a hint. He loves to sleep with his face under mine, but a) that makes my face itchy, and b) he also takes the opportunity to mark his mouth scent on my lips, which is gross. So, to keep our faces apart at night, I would discourage him from coming closer by blowing in his face. He was deterred at first, but eventually he started taking that advantage to sniff out my latest meal. Soon he would come up and sniff my mouth without prompting. As time wore on, it got worse and worse until nowadays he will, in fact, actively force his head into my mouth to sniff, and will then “lick” my breath. I’m still trying to break him of this, but goddamn if it isn’t funny. I’m going to be an awful mom.
"i know i'll regret it, but i have to touch that tummy!"
My other cat, Blaster, is the “bad kid” of the family. From kittenhood, he was so feisty he was essentially untouchable. He doesn’t like to be picked up, he doesn’t like laps, and he used to shrug off petting as well. This is a tremendous irony because Blaster is, in all seriousness, one of the cutest cats I’ve ever seen (although he photographs averagely), and is freakishly soft (like a bunny, I am not joking), to boot. In recent years, he’s become more open to affection. He will allow himself to be held for a short time, during which he becomes “mappy.” I do not know if this emotion is exclusive to Blaster, but it involves him purring like a madman, thrashing his tail about angrily, and meowing in piteous fashion until released. Once released, he seems to undergo rapid amnesia of the whole event, and immediately returns to normal. He then enjoys being petted on his face. Not his head, his face. As in, if you place your hand over his eyes and rub it vigourously back and forth, he’s in heaven. He also likes when you stick your fingers in his ear, and he loves noogies.
lookit those eyes
However, he has a thick rebellious streak. When I am sleeping against his wishes, he will find any local crinkly thing and poke it with one paw while watching me eagerly for a reaction. If crinkly things are unavailable, he will hop onto the bed and scratch the wall beside my head until I yell at him. Should I be so heinous as to fall back to sleep, he will then lay patiently next to me for a time, thwapping me with his tail, and systematically pulling all my belongings off of my nightstand with one deliberate paw. One. By. One.
Why is he so dedicated to getting my attention, you might ask (because this is certainly not limited only to times when I’m asleep)? It could be a number of reasons, the primaries of which are these:
Feeding time. Times vary between 9-9:30AM, and the same PM. Blaster is a very punctual eater. When eating, he daintily grabs one single piece of cat food from his bowl, turns to his right, and eats the piece over the floor. If the kibble has corners (or is an X-shape), he will eat all but one corner, and leave that on the floor in favour of a fresh piece. He is less insistent on it now, but he used to refuse to eat until he’d been petted. Once you began petting him, he’d bend down and eat his food while meowing. “HOMP OM NYOM MYOM HRONCH NYOM NYOWM.” Now he only nudges the hand that feeds him violently enough that kibble ends up all over the floor.
only blasters get to sleep, in this household
Lonely Time. Lonely time occurs from 7am-8am, and from 7pm-8pm. During this time, Blaster employs his usual methods to annoy me into paying attention to him, but as soon as I give him even the slightest hint of love, he turns into a purring maniac and flops bodily down onto me, demanding petting until he’s done being petted.
Post-Feeding Time. Occurs within three hours of Feeding Time. Not content to have been petted or to have nuzzled earlier, Blaster will not rest or waver from his mission until he gets someone to drop what they’re doing, follow him into the kitchen, and observe him eating some more of his food. He, I am completely serious, meows when you stand up, and will wait for you until you actually follow him into the kitchen, where he will look up at you to be sure you’re actually watching him, and then he’ll start eating. If you try to leave before he starts eating, the requirements for Post Feeding Time have not been met, and the process will begin again.
However, he does have his endearing points. He likes to rest with just his head underneath the couch skirt, and the rest of him sticking out in plain view. He recognizes my wake-up alarm (a honky tonk piano song) as Cuddle Time alarm, and will run to my room from upstairs to obtain cuddles, even if I’m just listening to the song on my laptop. He also hates the smell of chapstick, and will bat away all offending sticks of Burt’s Bees with squinting eyes. He’s also a conversationalist, and will meow (or at least open his mouth) every time you pet him. He does tire of being copied, though, so if you keep meowing back at him, he gets irritated and either attacks or leaves. Actually, that last sentence applies to most of my dealings with Blaster.
That’s a fairly in-depth overview of what I feel is strange about my cats, befitting the statutes on the internet in both length and inclusion of pictures that are grainy, blurry, or overexposed. You now have the highlights of a Day in the Life of a crazy-cat-lady-in-training. Whether my cats are unique in their peculiarities remains to be seen, and so I turn to you, internet:
ITT: Post weird things your pets do.
* I could absolutely write a whole entry on that video alone, although most of it would involve caps lock and the “lyrics.”
** We thought he might have a medical issue, but it turns out no, he just really likes hot water.
