I don't mind cats. They are cute looking things, inoffensive and tend to look after themselves. I find dogs tend to be much more bothersome. It's like having a seven year old child, they are needy and tend to do disgusting things in public. If I had to choose between the two, I would come down on the side of cats. My wife loves cats. There is a running joke in our Buckinghamshire hideout that, if anything were to happen to me of a permanent nature, she would become one of those crazy cat women you see on telly who have 20 cats and scares the local children because they think she is a witch. We are currently the keeper of a single black and white cat who is cute to look at but I suspect that behind those slitty eyes lies a sinister intent. The cat and I seem to be involved in a power struggle.
The Pecking order in our house is a follows: the wife comes first, then the cat followed closely by the children with me as the tail end Charlie lagging somewhere in the rear. I don't mind as it's my job to make the family happy (ish) so their needs and wants naturally come first. However, the cat isn't content with this and seems to go out of his way to flex his muscles and make my lowly position as difficult as possible. This may sound like paranoia but, if it is,I am in exalted company. The famed poet Shelley pointed out that 'when my cats aren't happy, I'm not happy. Not because I care about their mood, but because I know they are sitting there thinking up ways to get even'. Shelley would understand my predicament.
Most cats sleep a lot and ours is no exception. He is often to be found curled up on our bed. Despite having the whole bed to sleep on he insists on lying on my side curled up around my pillow which,to be honest, I find a little distasteful. I would rather not inhale cat hairs when I'm sleeping.
I have tried moving him but because I am such a softy he makes me feel guilty. He looks at me with those big eyes as if to say ' what have I done'. He knows exactly what he's done. Sometimes I assert my meagre human authority and physically move him. In these instances he shows his true colours by trying to bite me. He then shifts to a slightly different position and challenges me to try it again. On the occasions when I have had enough and shut him out of the bedroom altogether he takes his revenge by digging up the carpet by the door and ruining it, so I let him back in to save buying a new carpet. These are his daytime bedroom tactics, his night time ones are even more insidious. One of his favourite night time gambits is to quietly enter the bedroom and climb on the window sill. When he is sure I am asleep he takes a flying leap onto the bed landing with a mighty thump which wakes me up in shock. He can spend five minutes walking up and down the bed finding a place to settle then curl up right next to me like a dead weight thereby restricting my movements. His nastiest habit is to bite my toes if they stray from under the duvet while I'm asleep. It's extremely painful. If I wake in the night the first thing I do is check my feet are well under the duvet, just in case.
Then there is the chair thing. It's often noted how comfy the cat looks in my usual space on the sofa particularly when I want to sit on it. If I want to sit down I have to move him off and appear to be the bad guy again. Sometimes I sit on the floor or in a different chair but then it occurs to me that the black and white fiend has bested me again. If I do try and move him, he will shuffle along the sofa a little and take up position between me and my wife as if he is on guard duty. Sometimes he sits on the back of the sofa just behind my head as if to say' I'm watching you'. Another favourite trick is to wait till I vacate a chair then appear out of nowhere to quickly take my place. By the time I come back he is comfortably lazing so when I move him I'm painted the villain again. He has been noted to do this several times on the trot. Any chair will do and he doesn't do it to any other family members. Paranoid? I think not.
His more blatant tactics involve waiting until my wife is not around. It was late at night and the other family members where in bed. I was relaxing on the sofa with a glass of red wine engrossed in a film on a dark, cosy winter night. The cat noticed my guard was lowered, saw his opportunity and struck by vomiting on the window sill, down the curtains, into the back of the radiator and onto the carpet. It took me half an hour to clean up. He is regularly sick and most often when I am the only one around to clear it up. The other day my wife was in the kitchen, I was sitting down eating my dinner. The cat sauntered in from the kitchen, looked up me, made sure he had my attention then threw up right in front of me. It sounds more like the work of a malicious demon than a humble cat. Alarmingly, the cat seems to be raising the stakes. Just the other day it waited until the house was empty and I was in the shower before knocking a substantial glass vase of the side. It smashed into a thousand glistening fragments within a pool of water and half dead flowers. I could have cut myself clearing it up. Shakespeare thinks ' the quality of mercy is not strained', Ms Hathaway clearly didn't have a cat.
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