The Cat

 

Most of the time, the cat seems pretty annoyed about living here.

Perhaps I should backtrack a bit.

In my almost 40 years of life, I have never lived with a cat because I am allergic to them, and there’s nothing comforting about itchy hands, non-stop sneezing, and having the whites of my eyes swell until they are bulging out of my head.

I suffered these issues for weeks after we got “our” cat, and  learned the pleasure of using the vaccuum cleaner thoroughly and often. The good news is that after about 3 months of allergy symptoms, I was able to return to my regular vacuuming schedule. Which is hardly ever.

You might wonder what on earth caused me to put myself through all of this.

Well… for the child, of course.

Other parents might recognize how a child’s intense, life-long yearning for a kitty tugs at one’s heartstrings. “Can I please, please, please have a kitty?” was one of her first sentences.

The plea was incessant, repeated many, many times for YEARS, until finally we needed something really big to bribe her with so she’d behave when we went on a fun vacation without her.

“A-ha!” say all you other parents. “The whys and wherefores become perfectly clear.”

So now we have this cat.

He was the friendliest, most well-adjusted cat at the shelter.

Of course, now I know that was only because he’d been at the shelter for 6 months and was acclimated.

We brought him to our house, and then didn’t see him again for a full 2 weeks. Our friends, some of them cat people, came by to meet our new cat. I was like, “Cat? What cat? I can show you the paperwork that says we paid for a cat, and I can give you a tour that includes a litter box, a food dish, and a scratching post, but trust me, you will not see a cat.”

Little Miss was over the moon with joy, by the way, despite the fact that the cat was basically invisible. Had I known she was begging for an imaginary cat, she could have had one a lot sooner.

Our cat, whose name is Colby (because he’s orange and we live in Wisconsin), camouflaged himself  in the pile of stuffed animals that filled Little Miss’s closet, thereby officially becoming “her” cat purely by choosing to hide in her room.

To visit him, all we had to do was sit on the floor and stick an arm into the pile and feel for the warm spot. A rumbling purr would let us know that we were on the mark.

Oh yes, he purrs madly.

I’d like to say that he's became a well-adjusted family pet, but that would be exaggerating. The truth is more that we've modified our behavior to make this an acceptable home for our cat.

Colby faces many challenges here at our house.

We have a large dog, named Jazz, who, from Colby's point of view, probably seems intent upon eating him, but really just wants to lick him. And sniff his butt.

Colby is also reguarly exposed to an overabundance of affection from a happy little girl.

I can picture him shuddering even as I write that sentence.

I recently read a book called Mindblind, written from the point of view of a 14 year old boy who has Asperger’s Syndrome. I will explain where I'm going with this, but just want to state up front that I'm making fun of cats, not people with Asperger's.

I recognized my cat in the book. His inability to read social cues, the way a hug makes him positively squirm. His insistence upon predictibility -- "Um, hello you. Yes, you, the bringer of the food. It's ten at night. Food time. And bedtime. And you must pet me until I fall asleep. Let's go. Do you see what time it is? It's ten. At night. Food time."

He hates change, and he doesn't cope well with noise or erratic activity. Giggling, screaming little girls make him hide in the closet. Actually, the presence of anyone in the house other than the three people who live here will send him racing into the closet. Three people might even be one too many. If my husband touches Colby, Colby immediately starts washing himself. It's so blatent that it actually looks like an insult.

But don’t get me wrong, he likes human contact and solicits our attention. He just likes things to be a certain way. He wants to be stroked from the tip of his head to tip of his tail, in one long, smooth motion. Repeat. And then he purrs.

So long as we behave in an acceptable manner, he consents to keep living here. And for some reason that makes us feel special.