My cats rock. They’re outgoing, opinionated, and chatty. They point their whiskers at me in a remarkably benevolent fashion. My day to day life resounds with the sound of cats purring . They have soft furry bellies. Mmm. Happiness and cats.

Background: I had a little, intimate party at my home on a Saturday night during September 2001 with several *very* wonderful women as guests. My then-8-month-old Siamese cat, Random, as all who know him know, is a little freaky. He also loves people a little more than is quite normal.

Pondering Play Party Pussy Problems — by Elaine Miller

As guests arrived, we gathered in the kitchen, chatting and drinking coffee, and eating some yummy pizza that had been thoughtfully brought by the guest of honour. Random the Cat grew more and more agitated, leaping indiscriminately upon even the allergic folk, and trying to talk to and be on everybody at once.

Since he is clumsy (and pointy, too), I stuck him in the bathroom to relax and let the guests mingle without having a Siamese stuck to their chests. (If you think I’m exaggerating… please allow me to assure you that I am not)

When folk started to filter downstairs into the basement/rec-room for games, someone let him out… and discovered that he’d chewed a huge section of wood off the bottom of the door. The bathroom was coated with wood chips and paint slivers.

Once everyone was downstairs, we caught Random (he was climbing the recroom furniture, yelling with excitement), sequestered him upstairs, alone, and closed the door at the top of the stairs.

Some time after I had started a small game with my Loved One, people jumped and said “Is that knocking we hear?” As host, I went to investigate – perhaps it was the long lost missing couple of guests? the landlord? the neighbours?

I opened the door at the top of the stairs, tripped over my cat as he brushed by me on his way down… and found nothing out of the ordinary. I returned to my interrupted game, my guests – and my cat attempting to see exactly what about this recroom thing was so interesting. He was once more summarily ejected to have the run of the whole house – upstairs. Over the course of the next while, the noises coming from the door ranged from querulous meeps and mrrrrraiaows, to a sound I can only describe as similar to a full-grown adult human without the knowledge of doorknob technology trying to get through the door. He even knocked, I swear it.

I ignored him. My Loved One ignored him. We were busy. The other guests had congregated around a nice-sounding game in the next room, further from the stairs.

Suddenly I heard a noise that I could not quite believe. It was the rather unmistakable metallic sound of the *doorhinge pin* hitting the floor and rolling around, then the door’s scrrrrrtch as it was pulled open. “My god, he’s taken the door off its hinges” I said to my Loved One as Random romped down the stairs, and jumped on her chest, painfully squashing one nipple in the process. We were too stunned to move.

He left us then, and moments later the social sounds from the next room stopped… and one of the women walked by, dangling my cat from his armpits as she took him back up the stairs.

“Door appears to be off the hinges” she said on her way back to play. Neither my LovedOne nor I could speak. v

Moments later, the door rattled hard several times, then scraped open, and again my cat seemed rather proud of himself as he loped down the stairs and strolled in to examine the proceedings.

This time I got up from the table, took the cat upstairs as he complained bitterly that he just wanted to help, really. I bunged him in a heavy-duty cat carrier, fixed the hinge and the door, swept the splinters up, as they seemed like a hazard… and went back to restart my whole game…

So my only question is: Does anyone have a lion cage for sale? Cheap?

-Elaine, who has pussy problems.

For Random, who did eventually sorta grow out of it. Well. Not really.

Sex Kitten

Is he usually like this?
Umm, yes. But he’ll grow out of it.
This can’t be normal.
It’s just a stage. They all go through it.

Put him outside.
Can’t. He’s too young, it’s a new neighbourhood…
We’ll put him in his carrier.
He’ll howl. You know what he sounds like when he screams like that?

Maybe it won’t be too distracting.
(pause)
OK, it’s too distracting.
No, kiss me again. Mmmm.

Ow. You’re on my hair.
That’s him. He’s standing on your pillow.

Don’t move!
Why?
He’s looking devilish.
Close your legs — slowly.

I can’t do this.
Why not?
He’s standing on your shoulder, looking at me. He looks amused. We have to stop.

OW! Ow! Yaoow!
What!?
Bloody animal! Where’d he go?
What happened?
He bit my toe.

Let’s just make hot chocolate.
Sounds good.

Scarring may be permanent. You never know.

There Must Be More Than One Way To Worm a Cat — by Elaine Miller

Has anyone ever noticed that the directions of the package of worm medicine for cats goes something like “simply give the cats the pills… pink ones first week, fawn ones next week, and pink ones again for the last week..” Just simple little instructions. “Give the pills to the cat.”

The little pink pills went down nicely last week in tuna, so I had high hopes this morning. The fawn pills, may I add, are flat, round pills of about 1/3 inch diameter.

They give you a nice l’il dosage chart, which shows that, for instance, my fat 12 lb tabby Frodo needs five fawn pills on the second week, and my slim 9 lb Siamese, three. It helpfully suggests that the fawn pills in particular be given after a day’s fasting.

My usual technique of giving cat pills consists of encasing the pill in a stiff blob of butter, sneaking up on the cat, and abruptly poking a finger down the cat’s throat from the side, pushing the pill ahead of the intruding finger. This provokes dirty looks from the cat, but gets the pill down without a great deal of hassle. You can imagine how that would simply not go over with 5 huge, nasty pills that would never fit down a cat’s throat. Cut them in half and we have 10 repeats of the finger-poke thing? My cats are smarter than that.

As you can see, I had a problem on my hands.

I mashed the pills into a fine powder and adulterated them with a small amount of tuna. They had a nastier smell by far than the pink ones, and I worried slightly. I put Frodo “Fat Boy”s plate down first. He dashed at it, frantic for food after a day’s separation anxiety. He skidded to a stop a foot from the plate, shot me a despairing look, and set up a renewed wailing for something to eat. Random, sequestered in the bedroom, had much the same reaction when he was presented with the doctored fish..

OK, so I was going to have to be helpful.

I tried Random first, placing him between my legs and speaking nicely to him… I opened his mouth, took a fingerful of adulterated tuna, and stuffed it way at the back of his mouth. I then tipped his head up and spoke gentle, encouraging words as he attempted to run backwards through my leg, and spit tuna at the ceiling.

At least a tenth of a teaspoon went down, the rest flew about the room, making nasty splats on my sweater, my lap, the floor. I would have needed the jaws of life to get Random’s mouth open again, and strange bubbles of saliva were leaking out the corners of his mouth. He looked forlorn. I left him in favour of “helping” Frodo.

In the kitchen, Frodo must have overheard Random’s culinary review of today’s entree, as he approached me suspiciously, hoping I was hiding real food somewhere in my pockets. My attempt to quell his appetite with the poison-laced tuna were met with violent struggles, and similar huge ropes of saliva and loud gakking noises.

I’ve given up temporarily. I am surrounded by drooling, glaring cats, and I am thinking of pureeing the tuna mix and perhaps running an IV tube with it…