Look at these fellows:
Awww.... They're watching TV! Isn't that so cute, cute, cute... Hey, look at this little guy:
Isn't he so innocent looking? Let's look closer:
Holy shit! That is no ordinary catten.* That is the catten from hell!
Now, Shadow has done a LOT to earn that title, but Thursday's early morning antics put him firmly in the demon imp category.
A little background is in order, however, before I launch into the demon kitty tale. First off, it helps to know that Mark and I have a tendency to sleep apart most weeknights. I've been passing out at 9:30 or so, which is much too early for him, so he leaves me to sleep in the bedroom and goes into the kitchen to play poker on the laptop set up there. Rather than wake me by coming to bed in our room, he goes into the "cat room" to sleep.
The "cat room," as we call it, is technically our living room but it's currently set up as a second bedroom. The furniture setup goes back to our pre-dating days when Mark had a roommate and they had separate rooms. We took to calling this room the "cat room" because we put a baby gate up to keep an unsupervised Maia away from the "treats" in the litterbox and the cat food -- both of which she finds extremely tasty. The room has become a de facto sanctuary for the cats. They can run in there to avoid Maia or us. There's a nice big full-sized bed that they can camp out on and have kitty dreams. Plus the food and litterbox are in there. Three hots and a cot. What more could a cat want? It's pretty much where they spend the bulk of their day. When they're not out causing mischief, that is.
With me so far? Good.
I have to get up way earlier than Mark -- 5 AM vs. his 7:20 AM -- during the work week. When I get up, the menagerie is also roused from slumber. They know that when the Food Lady is up that their bowls will be filled with nummy nummy food just minutes after she brushes her teeth. Mark usually gets up too -- to change rooms. You see, once the cats have eaten, they go completely freaking berserk. Actually, Sam and Shadow -- the cattens -- do. They're the ones who terrorize Marks' sleep by bouncing off his head, repeatedly chasing each other across his butt and wrestling on top of him while occassionally piercing his flesh with their teeny and very sharp claws. Since the bedroom has a real door, switching rooms enables him to lock them out and get some uninterrupted rest.
Well, fairly uniterrupted:
So that's the background.
Thursday, I had a really important early meeting to get to so I was up and ready earlier than usual. Animals roused, Mark got up to come into the bedroom, making a pitstop at the hall closet. I didn't think anything of it, assuming he went to get a Tums or some Tylenol.
I was ready to leave for work by then, so I kissed him goodbye and prepared to leave. I stepped out into the hall and saw Spot, Shadow and Sam huddled around something on the ground. Curious, I took a step closer to see what it was. Instead of a bug, as I'd expected, I saw a small purple something. It took me a second to recognize that they were hovering over a pill. As if choreographed, all three cats looked up at me with a "Cheese it, the cops!" look. Then Shadow took the pill in his mouth and booked his little black ass down the hall. Spot and Sam were right on his tail.
I ran after the cats, heart racing. It had finally dawned on me that the cat had grabbed one of Mark's Nexium pills -- which aren't cheap at $3 a pop! -- and run off with it! All I could think of was getting it out of Shadow's mouth. Who knew if this thing could kill a cat or not?
Our cats, being the trusting beings they are, decided that the Food Lady had gone stark raving bonkers and that they needed to run and hide. So, the fuckers ran under the bed. The heavy, metal-framed, four-poster bed. I grabbed it and moved it aside. Mind you, I'm six week's pregnant. I had a feeling that maybe I shouldn't be exerting myself. But adrenaline being what it is, I grabbed and pulled.
Being that the bed is on a hardwood floor, it slid easily along. In response, the cats moved further under the bed to a place where I couldn't see them. I slid the bed across the room. The cats fled under the corner chair. Spot, realizing that I probably wanted the cattens, decided that he'd just watch the action and get out of harm's way. He leapt up to his usual spot on top of the dresser and randomly hissed at me in a sign of kitty solidarity.
I approached the chair. The cattens fled back under the bed. Stranger, who had been sitting on top of the chair and hadn't been involved in this at all, flipped me the bird (cat-style, of course) and hid behind the poker table. His low growls joined Spot's random hisses.
I suddenly felt like one of those animal rescuers in a cat hoarders home. Cats were running up the walls, under furniture and sideways with me desperately trying to catch them without getting hurt or hurting them. The desire for a butterfly net or a catchpole was great.
Precious minutes were ticking away and making me later and later for my uber-important meeting. I finally wised up and moved the bed in a way that trapped the cattens. Shadow was caught in the corner! Hoorah! All I had to do was pry open his mouth to check for the pill. So I reached down and almost scruffed him.
Almost scruffing a cat is as good as not scruffing a cat. The bugger twisted and squirmed, lightly scratching me in the process. That's when my brain reminded me, "You're pregnant, you asswipe," and I decided it was time for Mark to get involved.
I went and treated my so-called wound -- the teeniest of scratches -- by washing it with really hot, soapy water. I then washed it with Purell AND put bacitracin on it. Die motherfucking germs, die! I then went into the bedroom and called out Mark's name. Three times. Really loudly. Finally I snatched the pillow off his head.
"Mark, you need to help me! Shadow's got a pill."
"What?," he blearily spluttered.
"The fucking cat has a fucking pill! You need to help me get it before he dies!"
Melodramatic, yes. But I was worried for the cat.
Mark got up and saw the carnage in the room. He helped me look for the cat -- who had found a new hiding place -- but told me that he would probably be okay.
I looked at him and said, "You need to be more careful," got my stuff and left for work. I tried, I reasoned, and decided that the cattens were on their own.
Later that morning, Mark IM'ed to tell me that the cattens were happily playing on the bed when he took Maia out for her walk. He also told me that Shadow liked to steal stuff off the kitchen table. Apparently the cat has been stealing paper napkins, foil from candy, empty peanut shells -- Mark eats them while he plays poker -- what have you. It didn't surprise him that Shadow'd been the one to run off with the pill.
Cut to that evening. Mark and I were returning home from dinner out and had been laughing over Shadow's suicide wish and his balls to brains ratio. I kept arguing that since we had cut off his balls, he should technically be smarter. We opened the door, and sure enough the cattens were up to no good, shredding a chinese food menu that had been slipped under the door.
There was a brief "cheese it" moment with the cattens fleeing to the safety of the cat room.
As I picked up the shredded paper, Mark finally confessed and told me that he'd been worried. Turns out that he'd looked up some stuff about a lethal dosages for Nexium. In laboratory rats, 1000 mg of Nexium caused them to have seizures and other fun things.
Shadow had gotten a 500 mg pill.
Of course, he only told me this after he made sure the fucker was still alive. Which he was. Very much so.
Our guess is Shadow is now down to eight lives.
*Catten = an adoloescent cat that's somewhere between a full-blown adult and kitten.
