Saturday, September 15, 2007

Turd with a Tail

a.k.a. the Hairy Nuisance, Fur-face, Useless Lump, Her Royal Highness, and a number of other things.

In short, my cat, Elf (shortened from L.F. which is the abbreviation of Lap Fungus).

She "suffers" from a surplus of personality and character:

  • If her (dry) food dish is empty (that is, she can see the bottom of it, regardless of how much is still piled up along the sides), she'll let me know by coming and licking my nose - usually at Oh-Dark-Thirty when I'm sound asleep.
  • She'll prepare to ambush me by hiding under the corner of the bed - forgetting about her tail, which normally sticks out and ruins the surprise. I've been known to stand just outside of ambush range and give her tail a little shake, which has prompted her to try and leap into the air in surprise; since she's under the corner of the bed, these leaps are frequently accentuated with a solid 'KLUNK!' when her head impacts the bed/frame. A few moments later, she'll appear from under the other side of the bed as though nothing happened.
  • She doesn't seem to be sure if she's a dog or a cat: she'll periodically want to play 'fetch' with one of her toys (a stuffed mouse) - I'll toss it, she'll go 'catch' it, beat the crap out of it, and bring it back for another go - several times. That, and she has a predeliction for licking (not just once, but repeatedly) me whenever I give her a little 'scritch' (soft scratching) anywhere on her body. Since a cat's tongue is a LOT rougher than a dogs (think 60-grit sandpaper), it's a cheap way of getting dermabrasion...
  • She won't eat solid canned food. She's fine with the Iams she has available all the time, but the canned food I give her to supplement her diet (a couple ounces every other day) has to have water added and mixed in until she has something resembling soup before she'll eat it. This isn't just for SOME brands of canned food, but ALL of them.
  • Half or more of the chunks of dry food have to be dug out of the dish and knocked around on the kitchen floor before they can be eaten.
  • Her food dishes are in the kitchen; therefore, if I go into the kitchen, it's obviously to feed her. If I fail to do so, she'll lay in the middle of the floor (making me work around her) in protest.
  • She is absolutely fascinated by inkjet printers. I'm a computer geek, and work with a variety of printers for one reason or another; if I run a test print, Elf is there to keep an eye on it.
  • Similarly, CDROM/DVD drive trays MUST be beaten/slapped as they close - apparently just to make sure they know who's in charge.
  • When I go to bed, it is mandatory that I spend a couple of minutes rubbing her ears, petting her, and generally demonstrating my subservience before she'll let me go to sleep. If I don't do it long enough, I'll get head-butts, the inside of my nose sniffed, or any one of a number of other attention-garnering maneuvers.

"There are many intelligent species in the Univers. They are all owned by cats."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The ambush thing (with the tail sticking out) sounds kinda like the OOPS that Dogliness does when she "hides" and lies in wait for her dog-friend to come along. She thinks she's going to take the other dog by SURPRISE, see? She actually seems to believe that her 85-lb mass of brownness CANNOT BE SEEN as she crouches in stealth mode on her belly with her chin resting flat on a mat of 2-inch-tall grass.

Dave said...

Yup. Elf shares the belief that not wanting to be seen is the same as not being seen: she's convinced that she's invisible when she peers at me over the edge of the (white, shiny) bathtub.

Anonymous said...

I see that you are a normal person owned by a cat. Very well trained! :-)

Sam's Darling Wife