Open letter (to my cats)
OK, kitties, next to my loving wife, you three are some of the finest pets I’ve had come wandering into my life. And unlike my wife, I’d be more than willing to sacrifice an arm, a few toes or maybe even a testicle, for you, if the situation warranted it. But come on, it’s time to cut me some slack here, because I’m tired of hearing the ever so sweet sound of my darling wife’s ‘screeching’ voice, that I swear is so high pitched that only dogs and I can hear, when one of you does something questionable.
As far as owners go, I’m pretty cool about most things, and I’ll even tolerate the occasional ‘accident’ when you’re startled by the thunder, the retarded neighbor’s weekly fireworks and freak-fest show. Or even when the clueless prick with the crappy Honda with no mufflers, backfires its way down the street, it’s OK I even understand that. I don’t even mind when you shred a shoestring on my work boots, during an episode of your ‘Evening Crazies.’
But, for the love of God, one of you has to stop pissing on the electric stove. Please? I mean is that too fucking much to ask? Now, I hate to point fingers, but I think it’s one of you girls because boy is much too dumb, although like me, his aim is occasionally a little ‘off.’ Not that he’s completely off the hook, I simply find it uncanny that he could hit the exact same spot more than twice, with the same relative precision of a laser guided bomb.
From the ‘typical guy’ perspective, the first time it happened, I thought a few things:
1) Prop’s for the original thinking.
2) Damn, whatever I’m feeding you is worse than any CS gas I experienced during training exercises I went through NBC training in the military.
3) Thank GOD Mama was the first one to fire up the stove instead of me.
It’s much funnier when the victim is anybody but me, the guy who pays your food bill, your vet bills and keeps you rolling in $200 worth of toys, catnip, and organic, wheat-based kitty litter. Had that happened on my watch, someone would have lost a couple of their nine lives.
Other things that I find annoying:
Hairballs: Look, they’re a fact of life and I’m not going to ridicule you for wanting to groom yourselves, after all it’s only natural. But let’s set some ground rules, for instance, not on the carpet. I paid a fortune for that shit and I’d like to keep it nice for three or four years. While we’re on the topic, you’ve been provided with over 1500 square feet of hardwood floors out of a 2200 square foot house. Since we’re talking about aiming, let’s shoot for any obvious area that’s not in the traffic pattern. There’s nothing more disgusting than cruising into the kitchen when the Winifred’s asleep, for a slice of pizza and stepping in a great big giant, juicy hairball that’s larger than one of my turds, after a night at the steak buffet.
Running on/scratching up the walls: I don’t mind the racing, the playing and the fighting, but damn it, I spent months sanding, tacking and varnishing those walls, and quite frankly, I love them and the soothing feeling they give me, every bit as much as I love you. Don’t make me choose.
Sneak attack on assorted toes, fingers, nose, earlobe or other ‘appendages’ that might protrude from my body. This is your last warning; if I’m asleep in my chair, and you pull that shit again, I can’t be held completely responsible should you get hurt. It is a basic animal instinct, feline, human or any specie, to not react well to an intense pain impulse. When one of you little shits wants to ambush someone when they’re completely defenseless around somebody/thing they trust, it damn well better not be me.
Photography gear: While I really don’t expect you to completely understand, the money that I’ve sunk into that equipment is vastly more than the combined sum of all your vet bills, toys, kitty litter and food for the past 8-years. The next time one of you decides that the camera bag looks like a good place to have a Donny Brook and busts another lens, one of you is going to be stuffed and mounted, as an example. Not that I really want to do that but two of you, and you know who your are, are in trouble, especially when I get my gear bags out the night before a shoot. It’s one of the few hobbies that I have left, that your other owner let me keep after our marriage. So if I have to I’ll send one of you to the taxidermist, if for no other reason than to put the fear of God in you. It’ll help me keep an eye on you. Trust me, I’ll do it. I swear.
Computers: Kids, those computers that you are so fond of sleeping on are what keeps a roof over our head. Yes, they’re warm and the constant drone of the cooling fans and hard drives are enough to put anyone to sleep. Personal experience talking here, I can totally relate. But, where I’m allowed to do it because A: it’s physically impossible for me to sleep on top of any of them and B: I don’t, shed like a dandelion in a hurricane, I’m a little concerned that you’re either going to fry something or we’re going to have a fire. Quite frankly, I’m mildly concerned about the latter, so as a warning, I’m going to start putting double sided tape on top of them, and if that doesn’t work, duct tape, and I’m talking the good shit that sticks to cement. You know, the stuff I call 600 mph tape?
It’s not that I’m worried about losing all the data, computers or anything in a fire, it’s the fear that I won’t be able to rescue you if something happens before I can clean the fans and heat sinks out before it all spontaneously combusts. All that shit is insured, but you aren’t. So, that is out of an act of love.
But seriously, if we could at least meet halfway and one of you could stop pissing on the stove it would make my life a hell of a lot easier.
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