Midnight: You are screwing with me and I know it for a fact, this is not a paranoid conspiracy, I'm on to you, and I have proof

Where is treats, daddy?

This is a note of complaint about our black cat, Midnight, He of the Predictable Name, who is screwing with me. Review the evidence and see if you agree that he is screwing with me. Here is how he does it.

1. On the rare days (eight times a week) when the cats demand special treats, I get two small bags of wet food out of the kitchen closet. Opening the closet door instantly attracts six large fuzzy sharks who circle my feet and yowl their heads off. I then get six Styrofoam bowls from the closet, by which time several cats have climbed the refrigerator and counter-tops and the space over the top of the closet to meow in my ears their immediate need for food because we are starrrrving, starrrrving, helllllp us, give us fooooood or we'll diiiiie, and it is impossible to hear yourself think.

2. I retreat to the middle bathroom and lock myself in, ignoring paws that come under the door, and prepare six bowls of treats. One bowl gets the most gravy and meat bits, then is put on the bathroom sink counter next to my toothbrush holder. This bowl is for Bandit, he who is known as the Large Barge, who will eat everyone else's food unless delayed by a big pile of his own food.

A second bowl (and here we get to the screwing-with-me part) with extra gravy is also prepared and put on a low shelf over the bathtub. This is Midnight's bowl. Midnight refuses to eat unless he is within sighting distance of his bestest best good buddy in the whole wide world, Bandit, so Midnight gets his own bowl near Bandit's bowel, placed out of sight of the other cats.

3. I pick up the other four bowls and open the door with my elbow, at which point Bandit charges in and jumps on the counter and chugs food right from the buffet table. A deafening cry goes up from the other cats, all eyes on the bowls as they prevent me from leaving the bathroom in their efforts to get a bowl and do like Bandit's doing. After pushing over, under, around, and through the mob, I set down the other four bowls in widely separated spots. Everyone digs in. The house is now quiet.

I wonder if it's time for treats. I bet it is.

4. Except for one thing, I am done. I go back to check on Midnight. He is sitting on the rim of the bathtub with his back to me, less than three feet from his food bowl, looking around as if he just popped in from another dimension and doesn't know what a bathroom is.

He is waiting for me to show him where his food is, the food that he can easily see and smell and probably even hear less than three feet from him. He waits for me on purpose. He knows where his food bowl is. He knows this for a fact, I know he knows it, and he knows I know he knows it. But he won't eat yet, oh no, not yet.

He looks around, sees me, and looks sad.

So... I go over, pick him up (myew), and relocate him to a spot two inches from his food bowl with his face right over it so the bowl is impossible to miss, and I put him down.

THEN he eats.

He won't eat unless I, his personal human peasant robot serf butler indentured servant, pick him up (myew) and put him RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS FOOD BOWL. EVERY SINGLE TIME, I HAVE TO DO THIS, OR HE WON'T EAT. AAAAUGH IT DRIVES ME MAAAAAAD AAAAAAUGHGH.

Daddy is doing laundry so it is definitely time for treats.

Scruffles has seen this and she thinks Midnight does this on purpose, too, but she of course thinks it is cute. It is not, it is obnoxious. She thinks Midnight has me kitty-whipped. Even though he is bigger than an overweight leopard cub, he will not feed himself so long as he has someone who will without fail pick him up and put him in front of his food. I guess that way he knows the food is really his and no one else's, or else he is just screwing with me, which is the correct answer.

I could just stop picking him up and let him starve, but he looks so pathetic and lost only three feet from his food bowl, like his brain fell out, it just tears me up. I have to pick him up. I have to. If I don't, the dopey cat will starve and Scruffles will be annoyed. It is better to pick up the cat. I am kitty-whipped, I am kitty-whipped, I am sooo kitty-whipped. Damn cats.

CAT LICKS NOSE

Film at 11.

Alternate Names For Our Cats: Blizzard

"I can see you ignoring me."

* Princess
* Beautiful Lady
* Snowball
* Little Girl
* Chatterbox
* Rugrat
* Bug Radar
* Queen Diva
* The Jealous One
* Green-Eyes
* Officer Blizzard of the Big House Sex Police
* The Crazy Possessive Movie Star Cat of Sunset Boulevard
* She Who Must Be Petted Without Delay or She Will Glare at You Forever
* Loudmouth
* Noisemaker
* What Are You Talking About
* I Can't Understand Anything You're Saying
* Just Tell Me What You Want You're Driving Me Crazy
* Shut Up
* I Said Shut Up
* For the Love of God Just Shut Up
* SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP AAHHHHH GAAAAAH

Alternate Names For Our Cats: Midnight

Can't Find His Way Out of a Box Full of Holes

* Fuzzball
* Dark Matter
* Pea Brain
* You Moron
* Stop That
* Wotzizname
* Young Man
* Our Little Leopard
* Fuzz Head
* Rag Doll
* You Idiot
* Gimme That
* No
* I Said No
* Are You Deaf
* Put That Down
* You Bonehead
* Speaker to Space Hamsters
* Detective Midnight of the Faucet Patrol
* Boneless Droopy Cat
* Tarzan Ninja Cat Who Dares the Unknown
* What's Making That Awful Noise
* You Little Rodent

One Year Later...

A stupid cat gives me advice on this blog.

So, like, we dropped off the face of the earth. Anyway, we're back now.

Here is more about our stupid cats. They are much stupider than last year. Especially Dip and Midnight.

Enjoy.

The World of Tachyon and Sophie Cleese

I know, long time no updates - and to that we apologize. Scruffles and Bear will work harder to keep you the masses who are obsessed with kittehs posted.  A brief update on all of our feline overlords - they are ruling us with their usual amount of indifference.  All are healthy and have accepted the fact that we are still residents in their domicile. They seem content as long as the treats keep coming and the litter gets cleaned out on a daily basis.

Having said all that, I would just like to focus on our two newest additions to the Scruffles and Bear clan.  We adopted Tachyon and Sophie Cleese in October of last year. When they arrived at our humble little home, they were both very shy and skittsh.  Tachyon was slightly more social than Sophie, yet still preferred to stay on the top shelves of our back bedroom, just out of petting reach. Sophie Cleese has a black belt in the art of hiding. I mean she must have trained with Navy Seals.  She would only come out long enough to eat and use the litter box. 

That was then - this is now.  Tachyon has quickly come into his own.  He is our resident love sponge, basking in the sunlight that shines through our message room curtain.  Just one look at his content and happy face, you instantly feel the urge to pet him.  He will then in turn capture your hand and not return until you have petted every single inch of fur on his body.  He loves racing Serendipity in the Catopolis 500 - which is a nightly race that we are currently trying to pitch to ESPN (sadly they never return any of our calls).  Maybe if we can get all six cats to compete at once or get some kind of sponsorship (Friskies, Red Bull?) they might take us seriously.

Sophie Cleese took a little longer to get adjusted to her new surroundings. Our two year old gentle giantess loves to sit in the dining room with us while we are typing away on our laptops. She also likes to "supervise" if I am in the kitchen cooking.  Her sworn enemy is that damn red dot that mysteriously appears on the carpet or occasionally on the living room wall. Although she gets along with the others, she and Bandit have had some issues. I think he is jealous of her amazing cat treat eating ability. He walks by her, she growls - she strolls by him, he hisses and then they each fall asleep.

I would continue writing, but seeing that Midnight has decided to help with the editing, I better stop soon. I think that Tachy and Sophie are pleased with not only our abilities as servants, but with their new brothers and sisters as well. Scruffles and Midnight (who now has his paws over my hands as I type) signing off.  

French Words for Terrible Diseases We Get from Cats

Because I have a head cold right now and also live with six cats and my blameless wife (the fleas are all dead, though), I know it is a true, proven fact that cats are responsible for an infinite number of debilitating human illnesses, like my cold. For centuries, the French have studied the disorders proven to be transmitted to humans from cats (lǟ ƈђąϯz), and they even have a French word for those diseases: lě ƈђąϯ máláìȿě.

Ƈђąϯ máláìȿě (pronounced "chat mayonnaise") include the usual horrors with which we who are forced to live with cats are all familiar: dander allergies, rabies, vitamin deficiencies, pubic lice, viral memes, illiteracy, etc.

However, the French long ago discovered that the most devastating sicknesses with which cats infect innocent bystanding humans are psychiatric in nature—or, as the French would say, máládìě měnţálě lě ƈђąϯ. (I am not trying to show off my knowledge of French here. I only wish to point out that you don't know anything about French cat diseases, and I do.)

(By the way, the French have an alphabetical letter for "butt." The letter is Ѡ. The French call it "ðérrìèrě" but it is pronounced "butt" in English.)

These máládìě měnţálě le ƈђąϯ are pretty bad (ƒáᵫẍ máládě) and can make you super-crazy (pȿyçћöpáţћölögìě ȿánȿ ṿêţěměnţȿ). While I sit here coughing and blowing my nose and fighting off hordes of ##### ####ing cats that want to sit in my lap or climb on me with their claws or drape their tails over the computer monitor so I can’t see a single ##########ing thing I am typing, I will review the worst pandemics suffered by human civilization (the infamous máládìě ȿánȿ gráṿìţé) which infect us as a result of foolishly allowing so-called "domesticated" cats into our homes and bathrooms.

In French science, cat-to-human diseases are categorized (ȿymƀölěȿ pћönéţìqᵫěȿ) by their severity (påţћölœgìᴂ). The least dreadful and incapacitating ailments are those that humans find extremely irritating, only much more so—the ìrrìţé. The afflicted are barely capable of concentrating on the simplest tasks, so put upon are they by the demands of their feline "companions." In reality, the French learned that certain bacteria are emitted by cats that cause humans to feel, dare I say, obligated to serve and care for cats as if the latter were our alien overlords. The ìrrìţé class of contagions includes: çönƒᵫȿ, çönţrárìé, çћágrìn, döᵫlěᵫr, ìmpréçìȿ, ìnd샃érěnţ, lángöᵫrěᵫẍ, náïṿěţé, nöȿţálgìqᵫě, and the incurable petit pöpᵫláìrě. You will have to look up these tragic diseases on the Internet because their effects are so appalling that they cannot be discussed here. I think the one that starts with "L" has to do with sex.

The next worst classification of máládìě měnţálě le ƈђąϯ are those that produce severe emotional disorders of which the most learned psychiatrists speak only in whispers: the dìȿţráìţ. Once again the details of these savage maladies cannot be revealed here, especially as you might be eating dinner and read the wrong thing, then hurl like a giant Technicolor fire hose all over your dining room, your computer, your spouse, etc. This second group's list of terrors (the l'morte d'arthur) contains the grave afflictions of dépěrȿönnálìȿěr, ěẍìȿţěnţìěllě, ìnádápţé, incðmmœdễ, mélçönţěnţ, and méȿçréánţ. The prisons in Paris and other French cities I can't recall or pronounce are filled with people who were once as normal as you or me, or me at least, but they caught dìȿţráìţ and ate all the dirty kitty litter in their houses. Oh, I wasn't supposed to mention that. My bad. Anyway, you will agree that this is awful.

Now we come to the bottom of Hades: the málћěᵫrěᵫẍ, those incurable nightmares that mentally cripple 50% or probably more of all cat owners. Woe unto any who undergoes the torments of çréţìn, çrìmìněllě, délìnqᵫánţ, ìllégìţìmě, ìmƀéçìlě, ìmpöţěnţě, or (God save us) ìnȿöᵫçìěᵫẍ. Those incapacitated by málћěᵫrěᵫẍ are compelled to own really ugly cats like Persians, that look like they ran face-first into a wall at 50 miles per hour, or those hideous hairless Sphynxoid things that should be used to bomb North Korea. Also, these cat owners eat the dirty kitty litter in other people's houses, not just their own. Darn! Too much information, dreadfully sorry.

There is controversy over whether the ghastly préţěnţìěᵫẍ is a member of the málћěᵫrěᵫẍ group or inhabits its own revolting file cabinet of evil—the sub-basement of the bottom of Hades, as it were—as the worst of all máládìě ȿánȿ gráṿìţé. Préţěnţìěᵫẍ is known to afflict people who have just enough money to make them stupid. As a consequence they collect wines with little animals on the labels and talk about art as if they really knew anything about it, which I know they don't even if they claim to have art degrees, but they are lying. The accursed préţěnţìěᵫẍ makes those wretched unfortunates desire to own expensive and unmanageable felines with unpleasant habits like eating children, firemen, nuns, etc. The "cats" most preferred here are rare-in-the-extreme highly unique artificially gene-sequenced biologically unsound designer monstrosities such as those produced by mating Maine Coons with sabretooth tigers.

Préţěnţìěᵫẍ sufferers are the worst of all, the very worst, because nothing bad ever happens to them. Their gorgeous elephant-sized sabretoothed Maine Coons never eat them, much less bite or nip them. Préţěnţìěᵫẍ sufferers stay rich and beautiful and they just royally piss me off by continuing to talk about art when they don't know one ####### ####-### ##########ing thing about it. They appear on reality TV shows that would make Quasimodo vomit but only make the cat owners richer and more famous and more obnoxious with their opinions on postmodern neo-expressionism, of which there is no such thing because they just made it up, and given half a chance I would run over all of them with an Abrams tank except that their giant Maine Coons would eat me and my tank before I even got to the driveway, and that would just incredibly piss me off.

I hope this post has been beneficial to you. I, on the other hand, still have a cold. And the cats are still climbing on me.

MERRY CHRISTNUKKAH!!!

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Cats

I was forced to post this.

BREAKING NEWS or maybe not

Got to catch up on all the other non-sprained-knees news.

• One of the cats threw up Lake Michigan in the living room two days ago.
• Three days ago Midnight tore out a three-foot strand of tinsel from the Christnukkah tree and tried to eat it. We yelled at him to stop, which prompted him to sit on the tinsel strand and continue eating. Scruffles has photos to prove this. We took the tinsel away which caused Midnight to look nonplussed, which is the best word I can think of that describes how he looked.
• Bandit got on the kitchen counter and tried to eat all the turkey bacon this morning, which prompted a DEFCON ONE alert and Bandit's expeditious removal from the kitchen. He looked nonplussed.
• Midnight tried to help me wrap presents this morning. It did not go well. Not worth describing, you can already guess.
• It is totally amazing how many people in Malaysia read this blog. Just amazing. Why?
• I found out where Sophie Cleese has been hiding from everyone because a picture frame cracked and the picture fell off the wall beside the main bed, and as I picked up the picture I saw Sophie lying against the bottom of the far side of the bed, hidden by the overhang of blankets above her. We had hunted for her hiding place for weeks.

More breaking news later.

Serendipity, who will still not get out of the damn tree.

Aftermath of Bandit's attempted assassination plot against me

Mission accomplished.

The doctor examined me for 12 seconds for the price of a mid-size SUV (thanks to Romneycare) and told me that both my knees were sprained and I should stay home and rest and not get into any more trouble, or else Romneycare would subject me to more fees and I might end up living in the woods by the Interstate inside a kitty litter box. I went home and the cats were terribly glad to see me because they wanted to be fed, which is proof that when cats try to trip and kill you they never think out all the consequences. Bandit, however, looked unusually smug.

Fall, 2013

What I legally should have seen but did not

So while walking toward the kitchen last night for reasons that now escape me, I encountered a newly emplaced mobile roadblock in the center of the carpet and went down like a giant domino, causing moderate damage to my personal physical self accompanied by unusually loud vocalizations on my part and major medical ministrations from Scruffles (ice packs on knees, made to lie down, etc.).

At some point I had intended to write about Bandit's unwritten entitlement to dominate the floor space throughout the house, blocking everyone's path just because he can. He will sit right in the middle of the main thoroughfares from room to room, even blocking doorways, and will merely stare at you and just dare you to walk into him. Alpha Cats do this all the time. It is part of the encyclopedia of privileges and rights of nobility that accompany the role of the Alpha Cat. By violating my responsibilities as a feline-governed serf, I suffered most righteously and am now writing about my deserved punishment in this cat blog--not to complain, mind you, nor to whine about my injuries, but merely to point out that CATS SUCK. THEY SUCK, THEY SUCK, THEY SUCK.

Bandit, by the way, was miffed and went to sleep.

Thank you for listening.

The Greatest Show on Earth

And around and around and around and...

Toilet watching is a spectator sport with certain felines. Serendipity loves watching toilets flush more than mentally unbalanced people like watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Her pea-brain head actually goes in circles as the water spirals out of sight. She waits for a few moments at the end in case the water comes back, but it never does.

Some people say that cats are smarter than dogs.




And on that note we'll move right along...

Masterpiece Theatre Presents: Dead Kitty Classical Vignettes (Midnight's turn)

Is this a picture of Midnight's performance, a used dishrag,
a dead monkey, or toupee for a bald Wookie?

One cannot imagine a worse cinematic anticlimax than the infamous shot of a bunny snuggling up to the radioactive corpse of D-movie actor Tor Johnson, in that accursed waste of celluloid known as The Beast of Yucca Flats. Self-proclaimed avante garde actor Midnight Smoke, however, snatched the booby prize from the cottontail's fuzzy paws.

For his entry in Masterpiece Theatre's Dead Kitty Vignettes, Midnight chose to re-enact the final death scene from Disney's Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. The puzzled judges confronted Midnight with the fact that this particular film had no final death scene. It had no death scenes at all, in fact, unless you counted the demise of the honey that Pooh ate. Undeterred, Midnight squeaked that he rejected global proletarianization and supported the historic sociocultural class struggle against the exploitative and antirevolutionary didactic of feudal bourgeois sensibilities, then flung himself across the top of a sofa on the stage, cried myew (the signal that his scene was about to begin), and fell asleep.

Judges for the experimental theatre group, Sniff the Kraken, stared at Midnight for several seconds, looked at each other, then went to lunch. When he later awoke, Midnight  myewed that the Giant Space Hamsters from Saturn had told him what to say. Though he had not understood a word of it, he always did what the Giant Space Hamsters told him to do because they were his BFFs (a phrase he had learned from the TV actress Snookie). Midnight then ate an entire bowl of Little Friskies Gravy Sensations and promptly threw up.

The stunned judges unanimously gave the coveted Grand Jury Award to Midnight's prolonged barfing, as it so powerfully evoked the singular pro-capitalistic agit-prop of the prolonged barfing scene in Team America: World Police. Congratulations to Midnight Smoke and his promising vignette career!

Masterpiece Theatre Presents: Dead Kitty Classical Vignettes, by popular demand

And another magnificent performance by Serendipity,
this time of the drowning of Ophelia as described by
Queen Gertrude in Hamlet, Act 4, Scene VII:

Her clothes spread wide; And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

The Bard would have wept unashamedly at this evocative
postmodern interpretation of his finest drama. Though
clearly indebted to the work of the late genius Heiner Müller
(Die Hamletmaschine),the tragedienne Serendipity
imbued her performance with unconventional methodology
and won both the hearts and accolades of the judges.
The Cannes critics' panel awarded her 4.97 out of 5 stars.

Vultures Is As Vultures Does

Do I look like a black panther? Do they think I'm a black panther? I feel like
a black panther, so they ought to... dang, they didn't even see me. Crap.

FELINE FELONS: Criminal Cat Crimes #3

BLIZZARD
a.k.a. Princess, Snowball, Shut Up for God's Sake
Professional Feline Fatale

• Habitual stalking, harassment, and intimidation for purposes of self-promotion to result in blasphemous, idolatrous, and heretical worship of self by the general public
• Interference in a lawful marriage by seductive enticement to a male spouse to engage in a relationship vaguely like bestiality although without the actual occurrence of bestiality, merely the appearance of same for purposes of disrupting said lawful marriage and gaining the affections of the male spouse for herself
• Assault, third degree, by scratching anyone who stops scratching her first
• Felony voyeurism (details sealed by court order)
• Disturbance of the peace by loud vociferation without cause at every opportunity
• Excessive sulking and glaring (misdemeanor, fourth degree)

Is that a catnip rat in your pocket or
are you just happy to see me?

CRIMESTOPPERS #3: IF YOU DIDN'T PAY ATTENTION TO THE FIRST TWO, DON'T BOTHER READING THIS ONE, EITHER.

Vultures again

Eight feet high, Bandit checks out the kitchen scene

About 20 minutes ago, Bandit crawled up on me for a hug and a cuddle. At the time, I was unaware that his butt was soaked in cat pee. I have a new t-shirt now, have repeatedly bathed, and have disinfected all surfaces on which, to my knowledge, Bandit sat.

"He loves you," said my wife when I told her about it. At this time, I have no comment on her reassurance of Bandit's unusually moist way of showing affection, nor any comment on whether I am mailing Bandit to Honduras as soon as I get the stamps.

FELINE FELONS: Criminal Cat Crimes #2

Midnight in clothes dryer: first offense

MIDNIGHT
Midnight "The Village Idiot" Smoke
Known criminal associate of Bandit

• Burglary and/or felony trespass and/or illegal entry into domestic appliance preventing further use and obstructing private commerce
• Laundry tampering
• Compounding a felony by emitting fur
• Disrespect for authority by insolent use of tongue and refusal to evacuate premises
• Habitual criminal
• Torpor (third-class misdemeanor)

Midnight in clothes dryer: second offense, compounded by
sticking out tongue at law enforcement officers

CRIMESTOPPERS #2: SEE CRIMESTOPPERS #1

FELINE FELONS: Criminal Cat Crimes #1

Are cats bad? And if so, how bad are cats? Let's look at the evidence, gathered from actual police crime blotters.

BANDIT
Senior Antonio "The Lardbutt" Bandito
Il Cato Di Tutti Cati
"Most Alpha of Alpha Cats"

Bandit on top of the front door

• Unauthorized mountaineering of a door
• Wrongful possession of a communal means of egress and exit
• Interference in private real property
• Notorious and egregious appropriation of reserved real estate
• Nonpermissive establishment of false title
• Unlawful lien with adverse consequences
• Fictitious usucapion in res mancipi
• Violation of public order
• Disobeying cease-and-desist order
• Terroristic seizure of common easement
• Aerospace trespass [Quicquid plantatur solo, solo cedit] in areas not covered by United States v. Causby et ux
• Criminal ogling of passersby

CRIMESTOPPERS #1: STAY AWAY FROM CATS

Christnukkah Tree Damage Report, December 16th

One piece of tinsel, sorely abused

 

As of 9:05 p.m. today, the kwats have knocked down a total of

13 17

ornaments from the Christnukkah tree, pulled down

3

feet of tinsel (1 foot each on three separate occasions),
and ripped free

5-6

pieces of the aforementioned tinsel
that would make up a total length of

1.5

feet if laid end to end,
if it could be collected from

4

separate rooms in the house.

A Cat Doing What a Cat Does Best



Mmmm, piquant flavor with a hint of calcium,
lime, chlorine, and rust. Yes, it's Kitchen Sink,
2:44 p.m. A very good time for fine tap water.

Let's take another look at sweet and gentle Serendipity, the adorable baby Maine Coon who brings such love and joy into our lives as to gladden our hearts always, and when I say this I am lying like a pancaked squirrel on a two-lane road.

That was my water cup in the photo, the one Dip has her entire face stuck into. (...the one into which Dip has her entire face stuck... nah, I'm not an editor anymore.) I got one lousy sip of water, ONE LOUSY SIP, and then the cup went into the dishwasher, where it is now. ######ing cat.


I think we're done here.

Back to: FLEAS! What Happens When You Ignore Sound Advice

We were talking about something... fleas! Right! I'm on it.

Close-up of the fanged maw of a common flea, which
looks something like a Photoshopped humpback anglefish

So, armed with fear and ignorance, Scruffles and Bear went to a veterinarian's clinic that for legal reasons cannot be named. We walked to the pet nurse at the desk and informed her of our problem.

"We have big cats, they all have fleas, and my life has no meaning," I said.

The nurse looked at me for a moment, then at my wife, who calmly explained the issue. "So," Scruffles finished, "what can we do about our cats?"

"Shoot them," said the nurse.

"Wow, thanks!" I started for the door. "Let's go, Scruffles! We have work to... Scruffles?"

My wife was still talking to the nurse, who, to my horror, had only been kidding. I listened to the conversation that followed and got the general idea that we had to buy a lot of poison, cover our cats with it, then spread poison all over the house and leave on vacation. Three weeks later, we would return and there would be no more cats fleas. That sounded good to me.

Then... then... I learned the poison would not hurt the cats, just the fleas. Not hurt the CATS? REALLY? That sucked whale butt. We bought the first poison application anyway and, after two hours of screaming and bleeding on our part, we got a gloppy splurt of flea gunk on the necks of all of the cats and locked them in different rooms. We covered our arms and faces with antibiotic gunk and waited an hour or two for the glop to go to work killing trillions of worthless evil disease-carrying barf-inducing fleas from the pits of heck.

This done, we later bought a big plastic jug of anthrax mixed with botulism and Ebola viruses from a military surplus store and sprinkled it all over the house. This did not kill the cats, or even give them a heat rash. I vacuumed up all the poison, coughed a lot, and that's where we are now, waiting to see if we will be forced to burn down the house next weekend.

Stay tuned. Or not. Whatever.

The Patron Saint of Cats and Insanity: How Much More Perfect Can You Get Than That?

Gertrude, The Original Super Cat Lady, now
Saint Gertrude of Nivelles, a town in Belgium
that has the very abbey of which Gertrude was
in charge. This is her stained-glass window
from the now defunct Dominican convent
of St. Gertrude in Cologne, saved intact for
later sale on e-Bay, although Saint Gertrude
was actually a Benedictine. So it goes.

We will take a short break from talking about fleas to discuss something of dreadful importance to us all: cats.

Saint Gertrude of Nivelles lived over 1,300 years ago, when cat ladies could be canonized and made saints. Technically speaking Saint Gertrude did not complete the bureaucratic process to become a saint even though it wasn't her fault, and she would probably have been regulated to being "blessed," "venerable," or even "pretty good," except that when her paperwork was discovered 1,100 years later, Pope Clement XII wasn't paying attention and he said she was a saint and that was it.

The bishops grumbled that she couldn't be a saint because she got an 99% on her finals covering the complete hierarchy of the Church's administration, although she had 100% in all of her scripture exams, even that awful Leviticus with all those laws and prohibitions no one cared about. The Pope asked how long it would take for someone with special dispensation to correct her final exams because the Church needed a new saint to get rid of insanity, and maybe help travelers, wayfarers, wanderers, joggers, and those awful power walkers, plus all the gardeners, topiary trimmers, and shrubbers, and maybe even help protect the coasts from sea monsters, of which there had been several lately as this was the very late Renaissance we are talking about, when sea monsters were as common as the Flemish.

At this point the bishops sighed and said Gertrude had not actually performed any miracles, a requirement for the fast track to sainthood even with over a millennium lost when her paperwork was misfiled in the Vatican archives, though it is true she spent many years reading Scripture and doing nothing else. Clement XII frowned and said "Nothing? Seriously?" and the bishops said "Nothing at all. She didn't eat, drink, sleep, or smack young monks with a ruler, and this is a big problem even without the issue of her final grades. Besides, Gertrude wasn't related to anyone important, so..."

At this point the Pope waxed wroth and drew himself up and roared, "Do you know why I am the Pope? causing the bishops to look frightened and say, "Because God said so?" Clement XII said "Right, but I meant the OTHER reason." No one knew what he was talking about so the Pope said, "I am the Pope because I keep track of things, like genealogy and royal families and court rumors and noble scandals and celebrity marriages and celebrity divorces, and I happen to know that Gertrude was the daughter of Pepin of Landen!"

"You meant he's a hobbit?" asked one of the bishops. The Pope picked up his mitre and knocked the living sacraments out of that bishop and thundered, "NO! She was the daughter of the Pepin who worked directly for King Dagobert, who is practically a saint already except for that C he got in Vespers 101," and the bishops were mightily knocked out except for the one that got hit with the mitre who asked, "Isn't Dagobert that little dog in the illuminated comic strip with DiberAAAAUGHGH" and he fell over dead because the Pope had motioned for a Swiss Guardsman to resolve the problem, which the loyal Guardsman did.

The other bishops hardly noticed because Dagobert had been King of the Franks, and that meant he was one of the reasons why there was now a France and one day Jerry Lewis would live there. In addition, the Pope told the bishops that he had read all the papal bulls ever done and he knew for a fact that Gertrude had divinely driven all the rats out of her abbey and was able to herd cats, which no one else could ever do, plus someone had prayed to her when attacked by a sea monster and the sea monster ran away. Swam away, whatever. Miracles, she had no end of.

A typical sea monster of the late Renaissance

In such manner was Gertrude's application for sainthood approved once a cardinal fixed her final exams so she got 100% all the way around, except that her final approved paperwork was once again lost in the Vatican archives and she never did become an official saint, not that anyone cares. She got her own feast date, March 17th, the same day as Saint Patrick of the Green Beer, and that was good enough.

Plus (and this is the most amazing thing of all, I swear it), Saint Gertrude was also put in charge of cats and getting rid of rats and mice, thus she helps cure people driven insane by cats. Even though I am not Catholic, I think that is just righteously awesome to the power of infinity plus infinity plus one, because this is the kind of protection I really need.

The moral of this story is, Pepin of Landen really was a hobbit, but don't tell powerful people this because you might tick them off.

More Things I Did Not Know Cats Could Do, Like Defy Gravity

In a previous life, I was Houdini's favorite assistant.

This Midnight, defying the laws of reason and gravity by walking on the walls. You have to turn the picture counterclockwise once to see the real event. That's Blizzard in the background bored because Midnight does this all the time. I wet myself when this happened. Now I wear Depends, two at a time. The Pentagon looked at him but wasn't interested. "It's just a damn cat," said the generals when they left.

Things That I Was Not Aware That Cats Could Do (part whatever, I'm not counting these anymore)

Ah. The life to which I wish to become accustomed.

This is Bandit. Here he is shown destroying my life. When I type on the computer I suddenly have an armload of bloated alpha tabby in need of a massage and a chin scratch. If I push him off, claw and bite marks appear all over me as if by magic. Remember what I once said about the terrorists winning? You remember that? I can't ####ing get any #########ing #### thing done when I am being crushed by a ####### cats. You try it. Go ahead, see what happens. This so isn't fair. I did not know cats could keep you from writing, much less keep you from doing anything else like sleeping, eating, breathing, etc.

More on the series discussing the endless horror that is cat fleas in a later post. I need to calm down when I discuss that. All my psychiatrists agree on that point. But I cannot go my happy place when Bandit makes me his prison bitch. ######## ##########ing cats.

MICE! The Catastrophe Continues

While trying to cope with the flea apocalypse, a new horror raised its furry, rabid, blood-sucking, saber-toothed head within the confines of our cozy, loving, disaster-beset home.

"What's going on with them?" said Scruffles.

I was trying to work on this stupid cat blog and was having trouble thinking of a word. "What?"

"The cats are watching the stove like there's something under it."

They had indeed been looking at something under the stove when I saw them earlier. Being a masterfully superior human being with a surpassing intelligence, I paid no attention to what the cats were doing. Who cared? They were cats, and I had a cat blog that demanded every neuron of my attention so I could finish the all-important post about fleas.

"Come here, Bear."

I sighed and went to look at the cats. After some discussion, I chased the cats away and pulled out the drawer at the bottom over the stove. Nothing was under there except a mechanical pencil and two paper wads (thanks, Dip).

"I was afraid there would be poop under there," said Scruffles. "Look under the sink."

I knew what she meant. She meant mouse poop. There was none under the stove. Whew.

Then I opened the cabinets under the sink.

Mouse poop.

Mouse poop EVERYWHERE.

To be continued...

FLEAS! The Apocalypse Begins

Two days ago, in a moment that will forever live in infamy, Scruffles was petting Tachyon, the noisy Siamese, while I was compelled to hold him for the petting thereof. Scruffles then said "Uh-oh." She began going through the fur around Tachyon's neck. "Oh, crap," she said. "That's a flea."

The world stopped.

Did she say... a FLEA?

It is a good thing I am not a panicky alarmist about fleas, which did after all enrich human civilization with many entertaining and noteworthy historical events, such as the Black Death. Now, maybe it wasn't necessary for me to throw the cat at Scruffles and scream OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD before running out of the house and down the street to a discount store two miles away, where I sprayed myself with every can of Lysol on the shelves. (I am only kidding about throwing Tachyon at Scruffles. I have no idea what happened to the cat after I started screaming.) Nonetheless, as the Great Bard would say, there was a certain method in the madness, in that I knew that the flea is possibly the only carbon-based life form more terrifying than the cat.

You may laugh, but the evidence is quite clear. Fleas are so destructive that Satan himself regularly bug-bombs every level of Hell to get rid of them. This is the same Satan that sent cats to earth instead of demons, because the cats were worse. I think you see my point. In the historical record, aside from nearly wiping us out with 2,857 kinds of plague, fleas are also responsible for the spread of typhus and cat-scratch fever, zombies, the collapse of Lehman Brothers that brought on the Great Recession, and Congress. (The First Continental Congress was held in 1774, which was the year that plague struck Morocco. Look it up.)

Actual hypothetical scientific drawing of the giant space flea
that destroyed the Tunguska region of Siberia in June 1908
(Courtesy of the Russian Academy of Sciences)

Fleas make cats itch and then make people itch and then make the relatives and friends of those people go mad because now they and their cats have fleas, and we all end up looting shopping centers and driving cross-country like maniacs with bazookas welded to the tops of our cars while whole cities burn. And this is before the bad stuff happens.

To prevent fleas from infesting our cats and then ourselves, and it is making me itch to even think about this, many technologically advanced means are employed to remove the little rascals from our domiciles. The most popular and effective anti-flea treatments used today are shown below.

1. Set fire to your home.

2. Spray your property with nerve gas.

3. Blow everything up.

We will explore these options and more in future posts. Meanwhile, there has been a new development.

HOW TO COMMENT ON THESE BLOG POSTS ABOUT STUPID CATS

WTF?

I've had the worst time figuring out how to allow comments on this blog about stupid cats, but I've discovered there does seem to be a way to do it.

If you wish to respond to a post by one of the writers of this blog about stupid cats, go to the top of the left column, to the section "Contributors." Click on the name of the writer to whom you wish to send Comments about stupid cats. That will take you to a page where you can read what little there is about the blog writers, and then futz around until you find the Comments section for the post about stupid cats to which you wish to respond with clever and insightful Comments of your own. You might need to be a Google slave member to enter said Comments, but that cannot be helped.

Ah. After testing, it appears that you can read other peoples' published Comments about stupid cats only on the page where you posted your own Comments about stupid cats. These blogs used to put the Comments section right on the main page below the blog posts, but maybe that did not work out because of Internet-brand trolls, one of which I happen to be, but I do not troll my own blog. That would be almost as stupid as cats are.

EXTRA NEWS: The picture, by the way, is of Bandit reacting to someone standing over him with a flash camera when he wasn't ready for it.

EXTRA LATE NEWS: Bandit sat in my lap without my permission as I wrote the above. He smelled like he had just made the biggest poop in the universe and he looked very proud of his achievement. I threw up a little, but before I could clean it up the cats ate it.

Christnukkah Ornament Removal Talley III

Exhibit A, The People vs. Serendipity

As of 3:27 p.m. today, the kwats have knocked down a total of

10 13

ornaments from the Christnukkah tree, pulled down

2

feet of tinsel (1 foot each on two separate occasions),
and ripped into pieces

 

0.5

feet of the aforementioned tinsel.

That of course is not a Maine Coon tail sticking out
from under the Christnukkah tree next to a ripped up
piece of blue and silver Christnukkah tree tinsel

The Cruelest Cut of All

An assumedly copyright-free
Internet-derived line drawing
of a crazy cat guy, which I am
 most assuredly not. 

When informed the other day that I was writing in a cat blog, my sister laughed and told me that I was now a cat lady. "My brother is a cat lady" were her exact words. A crazy cat lady. I was so offended that I was speechless for almost a couple of seconds. Me? I'm no ######## cat lady. First of all, as my sister well knows, I am a guy, not a lady. Second, I am forced to be around cats, and this situation is not of my own free will. She ought to know that, too, but you know siblings. They do stuff like that. Heh. I remember once I called her up when Clinton was in office and told her that Congress was going to charge Monica Lewinsky with amata, and my sister said, "What's amata?" and I said, "Nothing much. What's amata with you?" I laughed so hard I fell down and injured myself. That was the best zing ever, just the best one ever, and my sister fell right into it. She didn't speak to me for days. But I digress. My sister had no right to tell me I was a crazy cat lady. That was just mean, but that's my sister for you. I should talk to my attorney.

Why Cats Are Like Vultures (Part 2)

Crap. I'll have to pounce on them from somewhere else.

November 1st, 2013: The day Sophie Cleese discovered the high place over the kitchen closet and got caught. Cats = vultures? I rest my case.

The Enforcer

Cats on the kitchen counter as you make breakfast? Cats on the table as you eat dinner? Cats yowling by your ear as you try to sleep? Cats in the bedroom as you... uh, skip that one, but you get the idea.

got cats?

Reach for the Enforcer.

God created cats and people. Colonel Water Pistol made them equal.

DRAGNET: The Big Cat House

Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to hear is not even remotely true. Only the names and facts have been changed to protect the cat owners.

It's a hard job, but someone has to do it.

This is the city: Los Gatos, South Carolina. I work here. I'm a cat. I watch faucets. The Big House is filled with faucets. If I could count, there would be more faucets than I could count. Those faucets are shiny. Someone has to watch those shiny faucets. That someone is me: Sergeant Midnight Smoke, Los Gatos Faucet Inspector. I set my own hours, but I don't get paid. Watching faucets is reward enough.

It was Saturday, December 7th. I was working my regular beat in the central bathroom. The faucet in the sink was shiny--but there was more.

It was dribbling.

You never know what a faucet will do. Some do nothing. Nothing at all. I mean, nothing. I know. I've watched them do it.

Then there are faucets that drip. I've watched them, too. They drip, then before you know it they drip again. Then again. Then again. Then again. Then again. Then I forget what happens. It doesn't matter. I'm always there. Watching the faucets.

Watching them drip.

This sink was different. It was dribbling. I don't remember if I've said that already.

You never know what dribbling faucets will do. They might dribble and never stop. Or they might drip, and keep dripping, and then stop and do nothing. I'm always there, no matter that they do. Watching.

I was watching now. Watching the dribble. If I could tell time, I would have watched this shiny faucet dribble for I don't know how long.

Then a human came in.

"GET OUT OF THE #######ING SINK, YOU LITTLE #### #######! I HAVE TO ####ING SHAVE!"

The human picked me up and dropped me into the hall like he owned the place. I knew he would. He always does it. He doesn't understand why I watch faucets. No one does.

But I'm Sergeant Midnight Smoke, and I didn't take it lying down. I told him what I thought of him as he picked me up. I told him I thought of a big human keeping me from watching shiny faucets. Me, the only licensed faucet watcher in Los Gatos.

He heard every word I said.

myew

Tachyon's Great Dismal Adventure in Scaryland

About three weeks ago our Siamese, Tachyon, being relatively new to our house and very shy, began exploring. He sniffed everywhere when no one else was around. We ignored him all day that Saturday. Then we noticed he was gone--totally completely can't-be-found gone. How?

Good old American know-how that needs
a wrench or two to make it work

At last we figured out Tachyon had squeezed through a narrow crack in the corroding partition between the bedroom's air conditioner and the window frame. He was out in the Great Wide Open. I figured Tachyon was miles away, but I went out for the heck of it a fourth time that night and spotted him. Our butthead Tikki-Takki was under a pine tree by the house, looking wet and scared and miserable and confused. He would not come to me, though. I tried for an hour to get the little bastard sweetie to get close enough to catch him, even chased him all around the house once and under the front deck, to no avail. He wasn't coming back in, no matter how miserable he looked.

Cat books say that housecats who get outside become too scared to go to their owners. This is worse than dumb. I've been outside lots of times yet always came inside because that's where the food is. That's why cats are stupid. We had to take action, or else Scruffles would get mopey and Bear would be more miserable than the blasted cat.

After getting advice from a tech at the Banfield vet clinic, we went to a big tractor supply company. There we bought two medium-size humane traps. We brought them home, opened two cans of wet cat food, and used them as bait deep inside the traps. We were soooooo smart.

The next morning, we went out. The traps were not sprung, but all the cat food was eaten. We did this three nights running, each time losing two cans of cat food with no traps sprung. What the #### was going on?

We brought the traps inside the house and tried to figure out what went wrong. We discovered that the trap release mechanisms for both were slightly off. We got pliers and fixed them, then put the traps put once more.

Three hours later that night, about 10 p.m., I checked. Both traps were full of yowling outraged terrified cats. One was a feral cat from the local neighborhood. The other held Tachyon.

I can't breathe! I can't breathe!

I opened the trap for the feral cat, and it disappeared so fast I did not even notice it was gone. Scruffles said it went off into the bush at the speed of light.

We took Tachyon inside and looked him over: no scratches, no missing parts, no evident rabies or leprosy or zombie-ism. We opened the trap and waited for our lovable prodigal cretin to rejoin his cozy lunatic asylum.

My laser eyes, they do nothing!

He didn't, because he was facing the wrong way in the trap. He was trying to get out the back of the trap and he was howling his fuzzy brainless head off in frustration. We pointed and shouted and used sign language and did everything we could, but he remained clueless. Finally I reached in and poked him in the butt. He snapped right around and ran out and vanished into the bedroom.

In about 15 minutes Tack came out and was perfectly normal. Even better than normal. He had changed from being a wallflower to being an adorable in-your-face pain in the ass, and he stayed that way.

It was still a good idea to bring him back to his family, though. No, I lied. It was a horrible idea. He sleeps on my arm when I'm trying to sleep and cries like he's got a thistle up his butt when he thinks he's being ignored. A horrible idea, getting him back, but we're stuck with him now.

And the Winner for Most Obnoxious Is...

No one will get to your secret notebook. Especially not you.

The Dipster is rapidly becoming the most irritating cat of all. She follows me around like she's glued to me, sits on everything I am about to pick up, stretches up and claws me in hopes of getting picked up, sticks her face into mine at 2 a.m., and when this photo was taken was sitting on my "cat blog" notebook, used for coming up with ideas for this stupid cat blog. She has also graduated from eating napkins to eating medical bills. She left tiny scraps of paper all over the bedroom recently that, when I pieced them together, formed a note I had written to myself about something, but not even the FBI could piece that note together to tell me what was on it. My wife Scruffles thinks Dip might have teething problems or jaw rot or a vitamin deficiency, or maybe all three. The truth is that Dip is a rotten little bitch and loves it.

I hate her. She loves that, too.

Things That I Was Not Aware That Cats Could Do (Part 3)

Uh-oh. Can't go anywhere.

Here, Midnight is perfectly balanced on the .75-inch-wide back of a chair in our dining room, about a year ago.

He does this sort of thing all the time. Once in a while he falls off the high wire, shakes himself in a daze, then walks away as if nothing had happened.

He's like Tarzan and sometimes we even call him Tarzan, assuming Tarzan had a brain so small it would starve an ant. Midnight: gifted acrobat and dumb as a railroad tie.

Still impressive, though.