Editorial 7.11, November 2005, by Deirdre Helfferich Alarmcat As regular readers of this paper are no doubt aware, the editor is afflicted with feliphilia, and owns five cats as a result. One of these beasts, Hexer, has distinguished himself as an early-morning alarmcat. When I am determined, I can sleep like a log. No cat with a pokey paw can wrest me out of my warm bed—and if said cat attempts to do so, he will soon go flying. My husband, on the other hand, is not so resistant to feline wiles. Hexer is one of two cats that I acquired from Peggy Rose, who works at Gold Hill Liquor. Peggy has a sweet little fluff muffin who periodically turns into a wanton wench, takes off for several days, and comes back with several buns in her oven. So Peggy has often had absolutely adorable kittens available for adoption. Kittens, much like puppies, are adorable by definition, but these ones are really cute, intelligent, playful, and all that. Good breeding, I expect. Peggy’s lady cat was in full motherhood at about the time I was down to one cat, Archie. Archie was getting bored, knocking things over on the table in front of me to see what I would do, that sort of thing. There was obviously not enough to keep him occupied, so I decided to fix his wagon and get him a kitten. Ha! revenge for that broken mug. I warned him, but he kept on with it, so one summer day I met Peggy and a boxful of kittens at the Ester library (then mostly the Republic office, but already filling up with books). She set the box on the floor and we stood back to watch. The first one, a huge long gray-and-white kitten almost the size of a full-grown cat, poked his pink nose out of the box and then bounded out gracefully and fearlessly. The second kitten out of the box had a much more difficult time of it. She was tiny, the runt of the litter, and had to scrabble her way up and out, only to fall somewhat ungracefully to the floor. The two of them seemed unafraid, in sharp contrast to the remaining two kittens, who were quite upset. I ended up taking the giant and the runt home, their relative sizes even more disparate by comparison. Archie didn’t get a moment’s peace for quite a few months. Hexer has a sweet temperament, even if he is a bit dense, and is generally quite nice to be around. He has the habit of nibbling Archie’s eyebrows off, but as Archie doesn’t seem to mind, we don't worry about it. Hexer does have a couple of unpleasant habits, however. For one, he is afflicted with a nervous stomach. All cats barf. It clears out the excess cat hair, keeps things internally tidy, and, I suppose, exercises their esophagi. Cleaning up hairballs is one of the less attractive aspects of cat ownership. Hexer, however, must be a champion hairball-whorfer. He does it every day. Sometimes twice a day. I worry a little bit about it, but we’ve figured out that if he doesn’t get fresh food on a regular basis, like, as soon as the food bowl gets low, he acts as though he’s been starved when we feed him, and chows down on the kitty kibble like it’s going out of style. Then, of course, because he’s overreacted and eaten too much, he gets queasy, and up it all comes again. Then he can settle down to eat again and this time he won’t throw it up. But he leaves us with a messy little bit of gurk to pick up, because he won’t do it. The other unpleasant habit Hexer has is also related to his stomach. He gets hungry overnight, and he won’t wait around and snooze until we get up, like the other cats. No, when his stomach says it’s time to eat, it’s time to eat. So he wakes us up. He’s learned not to try this on me, because I’ll make him into a catput, but Hans has not learned the ruthless attitude one must take with small carnivores, and so he has become the designated Food Guy. Here’s how it works. Cat wakes up. Cat is hungry. The alarm is not due to go off for another half hour, sometimes not for another hour. This is unacceptable to the cat’s stomach. Cat gets up, stealthily approaches the sleeping Hans, and slowly, slowly creeps up his body, being sure to step on Hans’ solar plexus, a vulnerable spot when Hans is relaxed. Hans grunts, turns over, displaces cat slightly. Cat continues his stalk of the selected prey, until he is within a paw’s reach of Hans’ face. Cat stretches out forepaw, one claw extended. Cat very very gently pokes Hans with the claw in whichever portion of his face is closest. Poke. Hans experiences very slight pain. Poke. More pain. Poke poke. Hans is being forced to wake up. He rolls over again. Pause. Poke, directly in the left nostril. “Gaaahhhh!” Hans wakes up. Deirdre wakes up. Cat leaps to floor, runs downstairs, sits next to cat bowl, enjoying the smug satisfaction of a job well done. Food soon follows. Ah, the joys of cat ownership. | ||
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