Oh, You’ll Notice Me Alright! (Part 2)

    Some cats are fat, some are skinny. Some run around like crazy while others lie around all day. Some cats are perpetually happy while others have wild mood swings. Some are smart while others, well, not so much. They come in all different colors and sizes but they all have one thing in common. They want to be noticed. They crave love and attention just as we do. The next time you're in the same room with a cat and you see it looking at you, don't turn away. If you do, prepare yourself for battle. It wants your attention and it's going to get it one way or the other.


    After the "it's not sleeping" incident, the two cats Frankie and Oreo, were to be kept inside. It was quite obvious this was not to their liking when I was informed that my cats were not potty trained. My two year old cats that never had an accident before had started having them right in front of the door they used to go in and out of. After a couple of days "accidents" it was decided to put the cat box in front of the door for awhile. This was the back door to the yard and no one really used the door except to let the cats out. This didn't work. Every day I would come in to clean the box and there it would be, clean. And every day, there next to the box, on the floor, would be "an accident". This went on for a couple more days and soon to be mother-in-law broke. It was decided that Frankie and Oreo could go outside. They could roam and frolic around all they wanted but only when supervised. So every day, soon to be mother-in-law took them outside.


    One morning soon after Frankie and Oreo had been re-potty trained, I walked into the living room where I found my then fiancée standing in the center of the room with my soon to be mother-in-law and my soon to be father-in-law. They were all staring at the floor where there used to be a six foot circular throw rug now mysteriously missing. None of us claimed any knowledge to its whereabouts. After a quick search around, the rug was found in my soon to be in-laws bedroom scrunched up at the end of their bed across from the bathroom door. Again, none of us claimed any knowledge to how it got there. The last person to see it in the living room was the soon to be mother-in-law just before she hopped in to the tub for an afternoon soak. The rug was immediately picked up and put back into its place. Nothing in this house was ever out of place.


    It was a big throw rug and weighed about five pounds. I had a feeling Oreo was involved. Ever since the bunny/snail incident, Oreo had been on a quest to get soon to be mother-in-laws attention. And he was doing it. He slept on her bed. She threw him out. He'd hop back up. She put him out to the family room and shut her bedroom door. He'd run across the room full tilt, jump up and hit the door with all four and walla, open door. He'd hop up on her bed, she'd sigh, and they both would nap. This was a daily occurrence.


    One evening while watching TV, Oreo comes sauntering across the family room to the infamous door of soon to be mother-in-law's bedroom. Standing on his hind legs he stretches up the side of the door and with both paws on the door lever pulls down. Click. He turns and saunters back the way he came. Less than a minute later I hear the sound of claws tearing up the carpet as this cat goes flying by like a NASCAR driver from hell. Straight across the leaving room and headed towards the infamous door, he jumps, he shoots, and he scores. Door open. Oreo heads back to the center of the family room and begins to pull this throw rug that weighs almost as much as he does. He jerks, pulls, and shakes this rug all the way to the room, to the foot of the bed across from the bathroom. The bathroom that a particular person just happened to be in, taken an early evening soak.


    Eventually a compromise was agreed upon. A fresh laundered towel was placed on the foot of the bed every day and every day whenever she was in the room you could find two cats lying on a towel at the foot of the bed. Yes, two cats. Eventually Frankie caught on and started riding the coat tails of Oreo for that attention high they both looked for in life.


    We were there for awhile but eventually it came time to move on. Out of a war between a person and two cats, a bond was created, a strong bond. The cats stayed…as requested by soon to be mother-in-law.

Oh, You’ll Notice Me Alright! (Part 1)

    Cats are like people in many ways. They have good moods and bad moods. Sometimes they want to play and other times they want to be left alone. Most of all though, just like us, they crave love and attention.

    I was in my early 20's fresh from moving back to California, living with my fiancée at the time and seven other people. Money was hard to come by and the traffic in and out of the house was just too much. Her parents offered for us to move in with them and we both agreed it was a great idea. There was only one issue, cats. Her mom did not like cats and we had two of them, Frankie and Oreo. After much discussion with her parents, rules were set and it was agreed the cats would come with us. The cats broke the rules starting on the second day.

    My soon to be mother-in-law loved to feed and watch the wild bunnies out in her yard every morning. Upon returning home from work on the second day of living there I was summoned to the kitchen like a five year old caught doing something wrong. With that 'you are in deep trouble' look in her eyes, she has me look out the kitchen window and asks me, "What do you see?" There were little pieces of lettuce, carrots and various other vegetable parts strung throughout the yard. It looked like somebody's salad exploded. I wasn't quite sure where this was going and I didn't really know what to say, so I said the only thing I could think of, "If you're trying to grow a garden, you're going about it all wrong".  My attempt at humor fell flat. "No", she says, "I was trying to feed the rabbits, the ones your two cats kept chasing away all day". For whatever reason that will for now and ever be unknown to me, Frankie and Oreo had decided sometime that morning that they loved my soon to be mother-in-law and would follow her around day and night, never to leave her sight. And they didn't.

    Things got worse the following week when a bunny (which I was assured was NOT sleeping) was found outside the front door and Frankie sitting right next to it. She picked up the cat, leaving the 'not sleeping' bunny for me, and preceded to explain to Frankie in a mom to child voice that, yes she loved bunnies and that it was bad what he did. This was the first time she had ever touched one of the cats let alone acknowledged them. Cats like people notice things like this and to Oreo, Frankie was getting attention. The following morning the front door was opened and there on the porch was Oreo with not one but THREE 'not sleeping' snails. He was much slower than Frankie.

    The war had started. It was on. Cats are like people in many ways. They want love and attention just like we do. And they'll do anything to get it.
(to be continued)