My new husband’s two half-wild cats have been living with me for over three months. Brothers Charlie and Satchi are sleeping on my bed while you read this.
Charlie snores in his sleep and drools wheil you rub his ears. He has a maniacal Joker smile when he’s particularly content.
Satchi, possibly part Maine Coon, is a supreme male ballerina show pony. He has a long bushy tale and mesmerizing coat of tiger stripes, silver, and gold. He chirps , trills, and softly meows when I pat his rear at just the right time.
It’s already happening. The over-sharing. Now I get why parents always post their kids on Facebook. These feline brothers are just so loveable. I offered to let them stay with me while my husband works on remodeling our new tiny mountain home. I was apprehensive yet excited at the same time. I firmly believe animals living in all-carpet homes is gross. I completely catified my home, including removing my drapes, covering my furniture, hiding my rugs, putting my bike in storage… essentially stripping my home of its charm. Would it be worth it, I wondered? Here’s a relatively short list highlighting how an obsession with two cats in a one-bedroom carpeted condo is real.
Cat toys. I can’t have enough. Instagram and Facebook ads trail me with suggestions, like cardboard beds (“Cats love to scratch out their stress!”, bird wands (“Keep your cats engaged and active. See how high they jump! Watch our video of happy customers to see for yourself!”, cat backpacks (“Explore the world together”), cat leashes (“Unleash your cats’ inner lion”) and darting red laser dots that can potentially push users to the brink of insanity (this one made me feel slightly guilty, lazy, and or/both (“Cats have a blast watching this battery-operated moving laser show. Keep your hands free while they entertain themselves!’)
Rotating between the bird wands and the mentally tormenting lasers have been the biggest hits so far. Satchi performs elegant sky acrobatics in pursuit of flying green worms, and Charlie gleefully tears up my carpet to exterminate a pesky red dot that just WON’T go away.
Charlie and Satchi (henceforth shall be named, “Da Boyz”) are usually my chosen company. It’s so much easier to co-exist with two mercurial and loving creatures than to bother meeting a girlfriend for wine at The Depot. My pairing with Da Boyz is my biggest concern. It’s magic: I’m an introvert and the cats are anti-social love bugs. Da Boyz and CC go together like rose and ice. Like goat cheese and honey. Like dark chocolate and sea salt.
The conversations. I have lengthy conversations with Da Boyz about, well… just about anything: a) The merits of studying human behavior via reality television b) Why Satchi should allow my alone time with Charlie to help build his self-confidence c) Why puking on the carpet isn’t their fault d) Why chewing through my HDMI computer cord is their fault e) And yet how I acknowledge they are wild animals living in captivity, probably bored out of their minds.
The mom guilt. I grew up with indoor/outdoor cats. Simon, who had a really bad attitude and started peeing in the garage attic went outside one day and never came back. The other cats had common sense and usually came inside at dark. Da Boyz don’t have that luxury, given busy streets and coyotes.
Vets say cats lives increase threefold by staying indoors. But are Da Boyz entertained enough? Well fed enough? Exercised enough? Are they feeling lonely? Experiencing an existential crisis about what it’s all about? What meaning can they grasp from life imprisonment?
While I’ve no children of my own, I’ve realized the legacy from my mother has been passed down to me; I’m both nurturing AND neurotic. There’s so much to anthropomorphize and twitterpate about. I leave for a few hours, and occasionally for a few vacations, and I already miss them deeply. An inadvertent cat lady and her clowder of cats.
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