Cat Tales

I'm Fiona at the front. My brother, Ian, sits behind me on the sofa. We are pretty good pals.

Ian: This past month has been huge for Fiona and me. One change after another. Very high stress for the two of us. First, the parental units (PUs) drove us half way across the country and moved us into another home.

Fiona: Then the PUs moved us halfway back across the country. The whole world changed. The engine is at the back of this new house.  That’s nice for us because we enjoy being up front when we travel and it is quieter.

Ian: So we made it back home to this park we seem to be living in. No big problem for us. We are adaptable animals if we are anything. We both like the new home, although I did have the scare of my life – and even used up one of my nine lives – when Robert opened this huge sliding wall that creates a bigger room. I was on top of the sliding room and no one knew that. Trouble was, I tried to escape by sliding my lithe body (that’s a joke, folks. I’m a little tubby!) I tried to slip between the solid part of the wall and the sliding room and managed to get trapped. Boy, that hurt. I yowled long and hard. Robert stopped the sliding wall from moving and then reversed it. I yowled again. I was caught half in and half out and the space was tiny. But I managed to slide my hind quarters through and jumped to the floor. It was scary and I learned I should not ever be up there. Now, when we move, I slip under the sofa and I stay there while the sofa and the room moves in and out.

Fiona: It was scary to hear my brother scream. But he wasn’t hurt. He likes to talk back to the PUs when he does something bad and they scold him. I never do anything bad, by the way.

Ian: This past weekend, the humans were complaining that I have grown so large I can’t seem to fit into the litter box. My problem is that I seem to hang my rear over the end of the box and that really annoys the folks. They bought a deeper box. Depth isn’t the problem. Anyone could see that. I needed a bigger box, not a deeper box. They went off out in the car and back they came with some cheesy new box with a completely new system. They talked about how it was a two-layer system, with a pad on the bottom to collect our pee, and a weird yellow chip system. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. Those yellow chips are hard and hurt my paws.

Fiona: I agree. I went into the box first because, generally speaking, I am more daring than my big brother. I pee-d and jumped out. I really didn’t like the feel of the yellow chips.

Ian: I said to my sister I wasn’t going to accept this new concept. I’m flexible. Lord, I am the most flexible cat in the universe of cats. But no cat should have to stand and squat on these damned yellow chips. I pee-d and said,  “That’s it. I’m going to hold it in from this moment onward.”

Fiona: Boy, the PUs tried everything to coax us into that damned box. They even sprinkled our old litter on top of the yellow chips. I went in and checked it out. I was holding onto my poop. Twenty-four hours in and I needed to go. But I was not going to go on that yellow stuff. I felt the old litter was better but I still could feel the yellow chips under it and, when I dug into the litter that brought the yellow bits back to the top. So I walked away.

Ian: We went through the night, not using the box. In the morning, Jo was getting concerned about our innards.

Fiona: Robert brought in the old box, filled with litter. Oooooh. What a relief. I was in that box in two minutes and aaaaah. That felt so good. My brother got in right after me and we both felt the relief. We felt even better when we saw the new system being put back in its cardboard box. They got the receipt out and off they went to get a refund.  Now, all we have to do is train my brother how not to hang his rear end over the end of the box. That is embarrassing.