THE GLARE

In my life I have known only two women and one female cat who could do THE GLARE. You know what I'm talking about if you are a guy and you say something you think is pretty funny but it comes out really dumb, like "You look cute for a dopey college graduate" or "Did you fart? Oh, it's your perfume, my bad. Ha ha!" You will get THE GLARE and you will feel as small and disgusting as a bug that is seconds from being stepped on.

These three females had THE GLARE down cold. And the Glare Master we live with is Blizzard.

You are dead to me.

Blizzard gives you THE GLARE only under certain very specific conditions.

• You pay attention to your laptop but not to her.
• You pay attention to another cat but not to her.
• You pat your wife on the butt but don't scratch her behind the ears.
• You don't share your food with her.
• You don't share your drink with her.
• You don't give her cheese.
• You battle a stove fire that's spreading across the kitchen and dining room with a fire extinguisher that is almost out of foam, but you don't pay attention to her.
• You look at or touch or listen to anything composed of gas, fluid, or solid matter, to include plasma, anything else in the entire cosmic space-time continuum except her.

You aren't aware anything is wrong until you get an odd uneasy feeling and look up into a cold, cold pair of green eyes. It would be funny except that it is THE GLARE and you want to lock yourself in a closet to escape that look. Blizzard would have been a natural as a velociraptor in a Jurassic Park movie, giving THE GLARE right before it ate someone's head. Blizzard wouldn't do that, but if she was mad enough she might send evil psychic thoughts into your head and cause you to go insane. She might do that.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

It's THANKSCHANUKCHRISTMICA!!!

Hooray! It's time to celebrate three major holidays at once! It's

THANKSCHANUKCHRISTMICA!

And offering her best wishes to all blog readers in this time of tremendous joy is the indescribably delightful white longhaired diva, BLIZZARD!

This sucks. Humbug.

Things I Was Not Aware That Cats Could Do (Part 2)

Did anyone call for an I.T. consultant?

On August 16th of this year, Scruffles was researching something using Google on her laptop when Serendipity (a.k.a. Dip, the Dipster, Dippity Doo, and HOLY #### OMG WTF ARE YOU DOING YOU LITTLE ########) walked over and flopped down flat across the keyboard as if it were a futon. What happened next is one of those scientific impossibilities like cold fusion, the Piltdown Man, or locating signs of intelligent life in Congress. Dip's paws and body managed to hit the right combination of keys to completely invert the contents of the monitor. Everything on the screen was now upside-down when not one second before it had been right-side up. (See enlarged detail below, with focus sharpened using IrfanView 4.35. Click the pic and examine the results.)

Yes, I do work for the NSA.

Scruffles and Bear bowed before the almighty power of the Dipster and did homage before remembering it was just a #######ing cat. Then Bear got on his own laptop and 30 minutes later had the solution for re-inverting the screen. Dip was properly chastised with a right good scolding that caused her to yawn.

Magic? Superscience? Satanism? Psychic energies from Atlantis? A harbinger of the End Times? Or was The Dipster just screwing around with us? Look at the evidence. You decide.

Whodunnits

Mile-High Paper-Towel Falls
(Photo courtesy of the U.S. National Park Service)
 

Sometimes you come home and you have a pretty good idea what happened while you were gone.

And a pretty good idea of who did it.

You laugh and shake your head for a moment, reflect on the wonderful humor of everyday life...

...then you pick up the ####ing paper towels that those ##########ing little #######s unrolled all over the ########ing floor and curse those #### rotten ####### #####ing ### #####s and hope they all #####ing #### ######### in ####.

When finished, you wipe the countertops with the big wad of torn-up dirty hair-covered paper towels, throw them out, take a double dose of your medication, and lie down.

Christnukkah Ornament Removal Talley (updated!)

You talkin' to me? You talkin' to ME?

 

As of 8:45 p.m. this evening, the kwats have knocked down a total of

7 10

ornaments from the Christnukkah tree.

Focus on Sports: Kwat Fishing with Scruffles

The secret is in the bait... a stuffed mouse.

Last May, Scruffles developed a new challenge for the local kwats that would keep them healthy, fit, and insane: kwat fishing. With a Zebco Dock Demon, a 10-pound line, and a toy mouse as a lure, she went after some of the most ferocious, hard-fighting game kwats the living room had to offer. With her signature roll cast, Scruffles drew in the big kwats by taking her bait through realistic moves that all mice do: flying across the room, bouncing like a pogo stick, spinning in aerial circles, and scooting scross the floor upside down.

It worked like a charm. Soon she was reeling in 15-pound felines like doughnuts reel in law officers. Being the catch-and-release type, Scruffles wisely ensured the living room was again filled with game kwats for future generations to enjoy catching. Sportsmanship at its finest!

Maine Coons are among the easiest game kwats to catch.

Christnukkah Ornament Removal Talley

As of 6 p.m. this evening, the kwats have knocked down a total of
 

6 7 

ornaments from the Christnukkah tree.
 

Six down, 412 to go!

Kits and Cats and Vets and Having Both Arms Bitten Right Off at the Shoulder

This is Bandit, looking as annoyed as an Alpha Cat possibly can when trapped inside a soft cloth cat carrier, waiting at the veterinarian's for his regular checkup. (Bandit's checkup, of course, not the veterinarian's.) Bandit looks kind of cute in a poor widdle kittie-kins way, successfully stuffed inside that cozy widdle bag after ten minutes of fighting and a box of Band-Aids.

There will be blood...

This was not how Bandit looked moments after the picture was taken when he was removed from the carrier and the vet took a stool sample with a little plastic spoon-thinger that he inserted you know where. Bandit is neither a small cat nor a weak one, and he is certainly not a cheerful one under butt-probing conditions. As a grim-faced veterinary nurse and a badly frightened Bear (me) held cute widdle Bandit down for the vet to perform the obviously uncomfortable procedure, Bandit fought to get up like a maneating tiger unexpectedly coming out of anesthesia. He turned his head completely around like that kid on The Exorcist, looked at me with magma-red eyes, and bared gigantic sabretooth fangs with a blood-mad snarl you could hear through concrete walls 100 feet away. It certainly appeared to poor Bear that Bandit was ready to rip out Bear's throat in a tenth of a second and redecorate the examination room in a bright flashy shade of wet crimson. Of course, Bear would lose his fingers, hands, and arms first, as they would be in the way of Bear's neck. It is a miracle that I did not poop myself. Maybe I did, I don't remember. I also do not recall how we got that rabid hyena back into that amazingly durable cloth carrier, but we did. A beaming Scruffles accompanied me home, where I had nightmares for three days. "That was a great visit!" said Scruffles in the car. "He's healthy!"

This is a good place to credit Bandit's courageous veterinarians at our local Banfield Pet Hospital, usually found attached to PetSmart stores, where you can buy the latest fashions in catnip-filled rats and big buckets of cat litter that cannot possibly hold the poop that even one cat emits in a day, much less six cats. Thank you, Banfield, for keeping Bear's internal parts intact, though it would help if you offered psychiatric medication to freaked-out cat owners.

Forward Position Overrun, Massive Casualties

At 0500 this day, a fortified position manned by Scruffles and Bear, who were in their bunks after an exhausting evening decorating the Christnukkah tree, was briefly attacked by Kwat Insurgents. Forward elements of the insurgents were able to breach Scruffles's position, but withdrew after being physically removed to the floor. The tactical situation returned to normal until a determined assault at 0700 by all known Kwat Insurgents in the contested local region. Bear found himself screeched upon by a Siamese on the right flank, purred and pawed at by the overlarge and appropriately named Sir Antonio Bandito on the left, legs held down by a moronic black feline who later walked across Bear on his way to attack Scruffles, who was fending off the dreaded sandpaper tongue of snow-white Blizzard of the Maine Coon faction, and additional indignities inflicted by the multitasking ambidextrous guerilla commander Bandit, who oversaw the operation. In a bold move, the fluffy warrior known as The Dipster captured and defended the pile of additional blankets by sleeping on it, preventing their use as additional shelter. The silver-white double agent known as Sophie watched over the fierce combat and gave it her blessing.

It is with regret that Scruffles and Bear report that they were forced to surrender to the insurgents despite attempts to hide under the covers. Scruffles abandoned the fortifications and was taken prisoner, forced to feed the insurgents. Bear played dead. The Siamese was not fooled and remained with the "body" to screech at it until the captured ration cans were opened and the long starvation of the insurgents (3.8 hours) was ended. This is Private Bear, signing off in shame.
 

I so totally win.

Things I Was Not Aware That Cats Could Do (Part 1)

Cat-garoo

This is the Dipster (Serendipity, the "baby" Maine Coon) sitting up on her butt, watching The Bird Show on the Really Big Screen TV. Cats can sit up on their butts? She looks like a miniature kangaroo. When did they learn to do this?

It must be pointed out that Bear has not been around large numbers of cats, since Warren G. Harding was president, which is to say he has never been around large numbers of cats. So when a cat does something everyone else knows they do, Bear is speechless. Cats drink out the the toilet? Really? Holy ####! When did this start?

In days to come we will explore the wild world of things Bear did not know cats could do. You may laugh at Bear all you like.

Phantom Toms

Lately I've noticed that there appear to be cats around when there aren't any cats around. It's not that cats were there in the corner of my vision and left before I directly looked. It's that there were no cats around in the first place, but I thought there were until I really looked. Of course there were no cats, but I was dead positive they were there. But they weren't.

This house has six cats. Several are so hyperactive it's like having seventeen cats. It becomes the norm to walk around knowing cats are at your feet every minute of the day, tails high and meowing their fuzzy heads off because they haven't been fed or petted or fed or petted or fed in the last five minutes, and when are you going to do something about it, bub? We're dying down here, feed or pet us before we come to a terrible end and you go to prison for life, you sick twisted cat hater, you.

There always seem to be cats everywhere you look, and even when there aren't there are, or seem to be. I'm in the bathroom shaving before going to work and happen to look down because out of the corner of my eye I saw a cat walk by the door in the hallway, but I turn and no cat is there. I check the hall but still no cat. The real cats are watching me with bored expressions from the living room, too far away to have walked by the door only seconds ago. I go back to shaving and a minute later as I am brushing my teeth I see a cat walk into the bathroom behind me, heading for the tub to get a quick drink from the malfunctioning faucet, but no cat is there when I turn to look. I stop brushing my teeth and look behind the toilet and in the bathtub and under the sink. No cat. I look out in the hall. The cats are still lounging in the living room, watching me. I stare at them. They look back in feigned concern. Did you want us? Is something the matter? Are we going to be fed now?

I go back to shaving—no, I mean brushing my teeth or something, I can't remember what I was doing. Damn cats. I use the toilet and now they all show up for real, sauntering in the door to see the human do something that, incredible as it may seem, doesn't involve kitty litter. They stay and watch and discuss the matter with each other, then they sniff butts goodbye and leave. They were really there that time, no doubt about it. I am washing my hands when another cat walks in behind me, and I turn but there is no cat there. I am positive a cat walked in. I look around, then I look out the door. No cats anywhere.

They are doing this to me on purpose. I know they are. They get fed and petted and their litter boxes (six) get cleaned, and they even sit on me demanding attention when I am doing something on the laptop I think is important. They don't care, none of them do. They are trying to drive me insane. They are doing it because they think it is funny, or because I am not giving them wet food every five minutes, or just because they can. I don't know why they are deliberately driving me mad.

But it is working. 

How You Can Herd Free-Range Cats for Fun and Profit

We have six free-range cats, by which I mean it isn't worth the trouble to make them stop walking on clean dinner plates or crawling into the food cabinets or sitting on the bed looking with interest as Scruffles and Bear attempt to snoggle right in front of them. Our cats lay on us when we sleep, sit on us when we use our laptops, steal our food and napkins at dinner, and emit ghastly poops when we are well within olfactory range. Free-range cats. It's another way of saying the terrorists have won.

No one will find me. Not even that two-legged thing with the camera.

We are accustomed to seeing cats on top of kitchen shelves, inside kitchen shelves, behind toilets, on top of toilets, under the bed, on the chairs we are just about to sit in, in the bathtubs, on the sinks, on tables, under tables, on kitchen counters next to our food as we're getting dinner ready, hiding in Christnukkah trees, inside the warm clothes dryer when we're trying to take clothes out of it, in open boxes, on closed boxes, on top of doors, reaching under closed doors with their paws, under pillows, on top of pillows, on the massage table, in the blanket wardrobe, looking in trash cans, dragging things out of trash cans, in closets, and shedding fur over all the clothing we own. We have given up trying to herd our cats, except for certain moments when dinner is being invaded and Mister Long-Range Water Pistol comes out and the cats run away. Temporarily.

It is amusing to read books by cat experts who tell how to cat-proof parts of your house in case you are thinking about getting a cat. The experts are having a little inside joke at your expense. You cannot cat-proof anything and the cat experts know this. They snicker knowing you will follow their advice and go mad because it does not work, but the cat experts have already gotten their royalties from the books you bought, you sorry bastard. Cats go anywhere they instinctively sense you will be most annoyed to find them. They do this because they hate us, and because they can.

Free-range cats. There is no other option except to submit to the terrorists.

Tachyon: Yowling Insanity-Inducing But Loveable Parasite

I want you! I need you! I've GOT to have you!

And now we come to Tachyon, whom I got to name. I thought "Mister Cat" (HATED that name) would be fast as lighting, hence Tachyon, a theroretical particle that goes faster than light. Tachyon, however, was not faster than light. Once let loose in the house, he could not be found--just like the tachyon in physics. Tachyon hid all the time for days. He (we confirmed it was a he, unlike Sophie Cleese) hid in places we never thought to look. Eventually Tack began making little Elvis-style appearances and proved to be a love sponge who struggled to overcome crippling low self-esteem for the blind and constant adoration he craved. Following Tachyon's Great Dismal Adventure in Scaryland (described later), he was so pleased to be warm and well-fed again he became a flaming extrovert. You couldn't get rid of him with a bucket of holy water and a fifty-pound silver cross.

Tack's favorite thing to do is climb up next to my right ear as I am falling asleep, then yowl like a crazed flesh-eating ghoul for a full five seconds at the top of his quite stupendous lungs. This is how he tells me he wants a back massage. (I thought learning how to give back massages to cats was completely harmless. I bet people who play with radioactive waste think the same thing and get the same results.) He is a sweet little guy, very affectionate, the littlest of our kwats, but he is rapidly becoming the most annoying of all, at least at bedtime. Plus he stalks me. Damn back massages. I should have cut off my fingers.

Tachyon seems to be mostly a Siamese with maybe a little domestic shorthair thown in. I was going to call him Creamsicle but Scruffles nixed that in half a second. Books and TV shows and movies about cats all agree that Siamese cats are "vocal." Such a humorous word. Vocal. I almost peed myself the first time he did that. He also yowls at the front door, possibly because he misses his buddy from the Great Dismal Adventure in Scaryland. Scruffles sometimes reads my mind and she always makes sure I don't accidentally leave the front door open and throw Tachyon out. Rats.

Bear and Bandit - A Tale of Interspecies Bro-catmance

Bandit and Bear enjoying some computer time

Now as much as Bear likes to rant about the kittehs that run the house, nothing is cuter than the Bro-catmance that is Bear and Bandit. Bandit soon came to realize that Bear was going to be a permanent fixture in our home. Once this happened, he immediately decided that he and Bear were going to be best friends - whether Bear wanted it or not. At first, Bear had no part of this whatsoever. Sir Antonio Bandito was very persistant. At night, Bandit would sit on Bear's stomach and begin purring and licking Bear's chin. Then the Alpha Cat would follow Bear around the house as if acting like a tour guide - making sure Bear knew where all the important house landmarks were: the kitty litter, food bag and bowls, cat toy box. Bear slowly started warming up to the giant cat whose purr can drown out the sound of the near-by train tracks.

Their bro-catmance really took off after Bear moved in last July. We had got laptops and Bear's favorite hobby when I am at work is to be on the laptop. Bandit started climbing onto Bear's stomach demanding to be petted while Bear was typing away. Then Bandit started insisting on nightly "walks" which means that when Bear gets home from work, he picks up Bandit and brings our big dude out onto the porch to get some fresh air. Bandit likes to sit in Bear's arms and watches the traffic and sniffs the air. After about five minutes, Bear's arms are tired and Bandit is ready to go back inside.  None of the other cats are even remotely interested in going outside. (Why go outside when there is air conditioning, toys, and food bowls inside???)

Now, almost a year later, Bandit and Bear hang out a lot. Many a night I have come home from work and see Bear on his computer with Bandit in his lap. Below is my favorite picture of the two of them.

Sophie Cleese: Easily Spooked Verified Female Trying to Fit In But Usually Hiding Behind the Chest of Drawers

om nom nom nom nom nom burp

We got Sophie Cleese and Tachyon as a Trojan-horse package deal in October 2013. My wife was approached at work by a kindly old lady who had two cats that needed a good home because the former owner couldn't take care of them and would Scruffles be kind enough to blah blah you know what happened next. When I walked over and learned of this, I stoically accepted my fate as the leftover passengers on the Titanic likely did, and I walked off while the deal was sealed and done. A few days later we had two more cats, bringing our federally unsupported feline sanctuary to six. We were told that Sophie Cleese (known then as Smokey) was male, so Scruffles named him Sophocles after a famous ancient Greek playwright who liked writing about kings who loved their mothers a little too much. Sophocles was a dignified and aristocratic name we both liked. The cat was a silvery longhair with a white chest, not much like an ancient Greek but dignified anyway.

Then, as we looked over Sophocles' paperwork, we discovered he was a she. Sophocles shortly became Sophie Cleese, unrelated to John Cleese of Monty Python fame.

Sophie was on the timid side with occasional bursts into assertiveness, helped out by hiding behind her favorite chest of drawers in the bedroom, with had a rear crawlspace of six inches. This serves her well, except for the time I pushed the chest against the wall and Sophie had a complete mental breakdown and hid behind the toilet. Lesson learned, we pulled the chest out a little further and Sophie perked right up.

I suggested a variety of alternate names for Sophie, but they all went out the window when Scruffles began playing with kitchen knives and looking at me with an absent stare. Maybe I will reveal some of these names in a later post. Or most likely not, because the kitchen is jammed with knives.

Bear's First Meeting With The Natives

I met Bear through a fan site for the MTV show Daria. We knew each other online for two years before meeting in person in July 2011. He was working at Fort Knox at the time and had to go to training at Fort Jackson in Columbia. While in Columbia, I drove down to meet him and to have what is called a "Dariacon". Well, needless to say, kismet smacked both of us over the heads with cement blocks. This started a year-long long distance relationship. He made his first visit to my house in late August 2011. He knew about the cats, for I made mention to them several times on the site we are both members of and throughout our phone conversations. He arrived late in the evening and the first thing he saw as he was walking in the door was Bandit, my resident guard cat. Bandit kept a constant eye on him while the other residents of the house at the time, Blizzard, Midnight and Logan (who now is the Big Kitty On Campus at my sister's house) weren't sure what to make of him.

Bandit spent the entire weekend "explaining" to Bear in his own cat way that he was the dominant male entity in the house. Headbutting Bear's knee, waking Bear up in the middle of the night by jumping up on him and staring, voicing his displeasure when I made our breakfast first - you know being a typical alpha cat. Midnight and Logan could have really cared less - they just figured he was to assist me as their personal maid service. The one that really surprised us both was Blizzard - who instantly assumed that Bear was HER man and that was I intruding on their budding relationship.

Now what made matters worse for Bear was the fact that both of my sisters also own cats. So as I was introducing him to my family, he also got introduced to their cats which meant he had no escape from the four-legged creatures which would come to take over his life.

Serendipity: Brainless Hypersonic Needle-Fanged Attention-Seeking Diva in Training

Dip in a second-long moment doing nothing

And now we come to Dip, a.k.a. Serendipity, once prosaically known as Lucky because she escaped shelter euthanasia twice before being picked up by an animal rescue group. Oh, lucky she was to find us, and so disastrous our selection of her was for us. Well, for me, anyway. And I was the one who picked her because Scruffles said I should. I've done dumb things in my life, but this one...

Our wacky, fun-loving little Dipster chews on bare toes, fingers, wadded napkins, loose tissues, valuable handwritten notes, store receipts, coupons, and red dots from laser pointers. She also enjoys excavating decades-old dust bunnies from beneath kitchen appliances and living room furniture; knocking pens, pencils, bottle caps, cell phones, and pill bottles off high countertops; racing through the house like an unguided nuclear missile; and walking over computer keyboards with the result of erasing everything you had just finished typing or even (we have photographs of this) causing the contents of the monitor to completely invert so you had to read it upside down. The real question is not what does she do, but what doesn't she do.

Getting a clear photograph of Dip is difficult thanks to her severe Infinitely Accelerated Feline Hyperactive Disorder. We recently learned, not to our surprise, that Dip was a mutant produced from radioactive spores in a government laboratory on or about April 27, 2012, making her one of the youngest predators in our federally unfunded (we are still trying to get a grant) wildlife nature preserve. She was once a little tiny thing with huge feet, but that was many many many hours ago. She is a (probably pure) Maine Coon and now of course is quite ####ing large... and nowhere near her potential adult size. Should her toe-biting habits escalate, we will likely be denied health insurance, even under Obamacare.

Midnight: Deranged Squeaky Ninja Tarzan Who Listens To Giant Space Hamsters

myew

Family legend has it that Midnight was found as a tiny kitten wandering down the middle of a two-lane highway in the dark. He was discovered by my wife's relatives, who immediately gave him to my wife-to-be, of whom some say [not me of course] she is as gullible in regard to rescuing cats as the Milky Way Galaxy is wide. My wife immediately took him in [no comment] and gave him his current name and told everyone he was the living reincarnation of her much beloved black cat Smokey, who lived as long as Methuselah before being taken skyward in a flaming chariot drawn by winged monkeys. This Smokey-Midnight reincarnation idea had merit because Smokey was reputed to be as complete a global village idiot as Midnight.

Midnight has many hobbies: drinking out of the toilet, chasing Blizzard, trekking across sleeping humans at 2 a.m., climbing to the top of everything in sight and looking down like a mentally deficient vulture, and of course squeaking. Midnight is a fairly large cat, but his only vocalization is the squeak of a microscopic kitten. It sounds like this: myew. He will myew if, for instance, you thoughtlessly lift him out of the bathtub so you can take a shower even though he still had a lot to do in the bathtub that you would never understand because you are not following the Hallowed Telepathic Bidding of the Giant Space Hamsters from Saturn. Scruffles and I have adopted this tiny cry for those times when we need to complain about annoying circumstances we cannot change, and complaining about it is a total waste of time. Your water heater busts and leaks all over the laundry room, or one of your tires explodes 120 miles from home, and you say:

myew. myew. myew. myew.

We strongly suspect Midnight is a Maine Coon, perhaps mixed with an opossum and some form of amoeba. He looks like a cat, but you never know.

Blizzard: Jealous And Demanding Imperious Diva Starlett Goddess-In-Training Princess

"This is my good side. My other side is also my good side."

Blizzard is also known as Princess, Beautiful Girl, Furball, Oh God It's You Again, Just Leave Me Alone Dammit, and Why Can't You Leave Me Alone For Five Seconds You Little Monster Cause You're Driving Me ####ing Crazy. Sometimes I can't think of her name and simply call her Shut The Hell Up Already.

Blizzard is beautiful in the way that certain venomous jungle snakes are beautiful. She is the cat most likely to sit next to my laptop monitor and glare at me with smoldering eyes, burning with indignation over the fact that I last paid attention to her 20 seconds ago and how dare I ignore her like this, am I some kind of depraved cat hater? Well, yeah, but that's not why I ignore her. I ignore her because she is the most grasping covertous possessive little feline harpy in existence. I cannot so much as pat my wife on the behind without Furball meowing shrilly from the edge of a nearby table, bed, or countertop in a desperate effort to remind us that I am her personal property and my wife (Blizzard's original owner) had better back off. Blizzard has a Jekyl/Hyde aspect that drives me insane, such as when she licks my hand and then bite-OW OW YOU LITTLE @@@@ THAT####ING HURT WHY THE @@@@ DID YOU DO THAT YOU ROTTEN @%@%@%@ [remainder deleted].

We once thought Blizzard was an Angora mix, but we have since been reliably informed by innumerable Idiot's Guide to Cats books, movies, and Internet webpages written by cretins that she is a white Maine Coon, apparently one of four we have, God have mercy on us. She has a greed for male attention equal to a hundred-mile-wide streak of Fatal Attraction multiplied by the monomaniacal jealousy of the goddess Hera, to the power of infinity plus one. Her green eyes are the only warning you will get about her personality. Ironic, that.

Bandit: Fearlessly Assertive Alpha Male with Unlimited Privileges and Entitlements Who Also Randomly Emits Poisonous Gases

The Cata de Tutti Cati

Bandit is the cat most likely to keep me from typing in this blog, and in fact he just did about five minutes ago. At random moments he jumps on the table, wanders around the laptop to me, puts both paws on my chest and stretches, then climbs on me with the intention of being held like a kitten and cuddled and hugged and basically treated like the baby Moses. Cuddling causes him to purr like someone repeatedly trying to start a Mack truck with no muffler. If I try to pull him off me, which I don't try anymore, Bandit expresses disappointment by covering my arms and chest with long painful scars, so the Baby Moses treatment it is.

Bandit's full name, according to the knowledgeable Scruffles, is Senior Antonio Bandito. I call him Lardbutt, Big Pig, Dammit (pronounced DAMMIT), and Get Back Inside The ####ing House You ####ing Little Rodent. He is the Cata de Tutti Cati, the Most Alpha of Alpha Cats, a notorious crime lord and feline gangster who does not cover up his poop in the litter box because he is the almighty Alpha Cat, and Alpha Cats never cover up their poop. (This is true. Stay tuned, and you will learn a lot of sad things about cat ownership.) Covering poop is a task for Bandit's underlings, specifically Bandit's owners, meaning me, because my wife won't do it. All the other cats love the odeur of fresh Bandit poop. They sniff it and sigh at it and admire it every chance they get. Sometimes, God help me, our black cat Midnight licks poop off Bandit's butt like fresh mocha chocolate ice cream. Bandit's poop is a local culinary delight.

Also, Bandit farts. Whole species of wildlife are wiped out when Bandit farts. Fumigators from five counties must be called in while I am gagging in the yard to make our house livable. Just thinking about Bandit's farts can make... you... I need to barf, BRB.

I'm back. Bandit is a (deep breath) large heavy massively dense salt-and-pepper domestic mackeral pattern tabby cat with coppery highlights on his face. He was personally sent to Earth by Satan from the Cat Abyss on the Tenth Circle of the Inferno, where all bad cats come from. There are no good cats.

I could put up with Bandit sitting on my chest if only he would not insist on licking my face. I know where that tongue has been. It takes a lot to keep his mouth away from mine, but it is worth it. Sort of. I dunno.

Why Would I Write a Blog About Why I Loathe Cats? Why Would I Not?

The internationally notorious Bandit, here seen loitering

The fault is entirely my own. I knew from the start that my fiancée had cats. I hate cats. We got married anyway and now I have Scruffles, my hot cute wife, but am also stuck with a bunch of morons, idiots, and blockheads who throw up on the carpet when I am walking around in sock feet looking for the bathroom in the middle of the night. The stench from their poop could kill a rhino. They act like they're deaf when you are screaming at them for shredding Kleenex and leaving the pieces all over the house, or when they chew on your toes when you are asleep. They won't run away no matter how often you leave the front door open, though Bandit will walk outside, yawn, stretch, then wait for you to pick him up and bring him inside. Midnight will also rush out because in his microscopic brain he worships Bandit and will do anything Bandit does, especially lick Bandit's butt. More on that exciting topic later, even if it makes me throw up a little bit.

Am I a blockhead for living with cats? Of course not. I am a helpless victim of pure cat evil, a doomed soul whose work clothes are covered in cat hair, a human being treated like a medieval peasant forced to clean out litter boxes that would make a hyena retch. This blog is my tragic story, the woeful tale of Bear [not my actual name, because anonymity helps when you say am lot of bad things about cats on the Internet, though everyone knows it is all true]. You could argue that this is actually our cats' story, but my whining about cats will be a regular feature. My wife Scruffles [her "pet" name keeps people from realizing she's married to me]says she too will post here to set the record on cats straight with a healthy dose of reality, sanity, and wisdom, which is ridiculous because she loves cats and thus lacks all rational perspective.

Cats are both a threat AND a menace, and I can prove it. Wait and see.