Wind and Withering

If ever you get to the point where you think you're all that and a bag of chips, let a cat move into your living quarters. In short order, you will be disabused of that notion.

For all of January, I get a double-dose of cat judgment, as The Bat goes off with Pop for the month, leaving behind her Boykitty along with the Midwestern deep freeze.

As you might guess by his picture, above, Boykitty is a Basement Cat in color and in nature. He bullies other animals in his territory, and, to him, every inch of the universe is his. He claims chairs for the sake of inconveniencing whichever person had occupied it before vacating it for a trip to the necessary. He sits in hallways in the wee hours, singing at the top of his lungs. And, when he's done singing, he walks across the bodies of any who might have slept through his performance, making sure the house is all awake. He has an extra-high backsplash on the litter box because his aim is…well, you can figure that out for yourself. Also, he doesn't bury what he leaves inside said box.

I thought that, after roughly a decade of Januaries, I knew what to expect from him. Then came bedtime last night.

Let me preface this part of the tale by first admitting I am no longer young, and have less than stellar dietary and exercise habits. Like an aging Labrador retriever, my fetch is slow and my food is even more likely to talk back than I am. A little beer, a few beans, or an egg fried in butter, or certain high-fiber dishes can create music in my lower digestive tract, the likes of which can bring tears to your eyes.

So there I was, bedded down with the cats – one each on the pillows flanking my own – last night, having had a rich dinner several hours earlier, and my back trumpet began to play loudly and proudly. The Allergen, near my face, ignored it. Boykitty, on the other hand, had been pressed against my back, and was startled enough to leap to his feet, at which time he began to pace the perimeter of the bed in search of whatever had startled him awake. When he finally decided he wasn't being attacked, he returned to his pillow, only to hear the sound again – this time, while he was awake enough to track down its source.

He clawed at the lightweight blanket, pulled it from by my thighs and from around my waist, until he had built a pillow behind me, and then he sat across the room, staring in my direction. For the first time since I've known him, he did his best to bury the source of that smell.

Now that he's confirmed what I already knew – that my farts don't smell like roses, even to pets – next time he starts dishing out cattitude, I may have to "Dutch oven" the little boogerhead.

For training purposes.