“The mouse has a little switch in its back,” the pet sitter informed us. Flipping the switch caused the mouse to move about in motorized circles on the floor.
“Your cat will love it,” she assured us. “All cats love it.”
Our cat most certainly did not love it. When we flipped the switch, a great tremor enveloped the room as the mouse’s internal gaskets roared to life. We set the mouse on the floor and it raced about in jerky circles. Fast jerky circles. In fact, the mouse appeared to have overdosed on some form of an illegal substance.
Not that the cat would know this. She disappeared from the room at the first sign of life from the mouse. We found her an hour later, trembling under an upstairs bed.
We decided the motor and the presence of a big brown mouse was too much to take in all at once. We agreed we needed to “introduce” the cat to the mouse—as if they might agree to meet later for drinks if they hit it off.
The next night at dinner my husband retrieved the mouse and placed it again in the center of the kitchen floor, where it stayed for several hours.
The cat wouldn’t come near it.
I tried getting down on the floor and petting the mouse, to show the cat there was no danger. She looked even more alarmed at these actions. Perhaps she thought I was thinking of trading her in.
On the second night she acquiesced, somewhat, and agreed to be in the same room with the mouse. She sat atop a chair and didn’t take her eyes off the brown monstrosity.
Out of pity, I hid the mouse before we went to bed.
I don’t think the cat would have slept otherwise.
Night three was the same. The mouse was on the floor; the cat was on the chair. She left briefly to use the facilities, as my husband insists on referring to the litter box.
“This is stupid,” he said after she left the room. “She obviously hates that thing. Let’s get rid of it.”
I balked at giving up on yet another toy. After all, I had been the one to throw out the parrot on a suction cup that stuck to doors and “soared lifelike about your cat’s head,” promising hours of fun.
The cat never looked up.
I took back the catnip filled Garfield toys, the cat spa, and toys with random glitter and feathers stuck to them, all purchased in the hopes of enticing my feline to play.
She sniffed them once and walked away.
And let’s not forget the eighty-five dollar kitty jungle gym with carpet more plush than is to be found anywhere in my home, that was a “must” for indoor cats.
The cat climbed it once to prove she could and now won’t go near it except to occasionally sharpen her claws.
We use it as a plant holder.
But even I, who had envisioned hours of fun for the cat that didn’t involve me having to stand in one place and swat around a plastic fishing pole with rubber-fly lure attached, had to agree. The cat was just not getting into the spirit of things. I got up and threw the mouse away.
The cat walked into the kitchen to rejoin us and froze.
Eyes darting, her body language spoke as plainly as words:
Where the heck did that thing go?
She was obviously terrified. She crouched low and peered under the table, searching for the mouse. Nothing.
She slowly raised her head and examined what she could see of the table and chairs. Nothing. A bird chirped outside and the cat leaped, hissing.
“I feel bad,” I told my husband. “She’s still freaked out.”
“Yeah, maybe we should buy her a new toy,” he said.
“You know, something to distract her. I’ll see what I can find.”
The toy he came back with looked harmless enough— a musical ball that played various songs from the musical “Cats” every time it was nudged. The cat adores it, if only because she knows we’re slowly going insane.
She has us living on edge. We’re at the point where she was when she was freaked out about the brown mouse.
We cling to the edge of our chairs, bleary-eyed from lack of The Big Brown Mouse & Other Toys Our Cat Loathes 32
Lessons in Stalking sleep, swatting at shadows, afraid everything that moves might start to play “Mr. Mistoffolees.”
And the cat is laughing. She even goes so far as to occasionally hide the ball so we may experience the fear of never knowing exactly when we might be attacked by a bright blue orb winging down the hall screeching “Memory” at full volume.
But we’ll have the last laugh. We’re going out of town again and invited the pet sitter back. And we made sure to tell her how much the cat loved her gift and to please bring another.
Between the musical orb and the motorized brown mouse, I’ll take the mouse.
I have to.
My nerves can’t take any more.
-5-
Yoga Cat
I took up yoga two years ago, around the same time we got our cat. Having read that owning a cat and practicing yoga were both fail-safe methods to soothe troubled nerves, I envisioned a life filled with peace and inner reflection.
Now two years wiser, I know that people who own cats do yoga simply to release the stress in their lives that exists because they own a cat.
My cat mocks me while I do yoga. As I sit on my padded blue mat, tangled up in a pose the human body, or at least my body, was not meant to perform, she’ll sit beside me and perform the same pose flawlessly.
“Now, raise your right leg, keeping your left leg fully extended,” coos my video yoga instructor. “Balance on your sitting bones, and raise the leg over your head.”
Puffing and grunting, I try to extend my leg. Without breaking a sweat, the cat plops herself down beside me and raises her right leg over her head, making sure her back leg remains fully extended. I look over at her. She looks back and, pointedly, bends down and licks herself without lowering the leg.
I find this insulting.
I decide I need more personalized instruction and sign up at our local Y, paying $75 to have a certified yoga instructor twist me into painful and humiliating poses. But the cat is not there, executing a better version of “Downward Facing Dog” than me, so it’s bearable.
“You’re doing very well,” encourages my instructor.
“Thank you,” I say. “I’m trying to impress my cat.”
The instructor backs away, and avoids me for the rest of the class. But I don’t mind. I am raising and extending my legs at an advanced rate. I can’t wait to show the cat.
I return home and pull out my mat. The cat looks pleased. It’s been a few days since she’s humiliated me.
“Ha! That’s only what you think is going to happen,” I say. “Watch this!” I proceed to execute a flawless “Dead-bug” pose. The cat looks amused.
“That’s not all,” I say. “I can also do this!” I move into Downward Facing Dog, remembering to breathe, as my instructor said.
The cat ambles over, takes a seat next to my head, and stares at me. My arms begin to tremble, but I refuse to give up the pose. The cat continues to stare, glancing significantly at my now shaking torso. I am no longer breathing properly.
In fact, I think I am close to hyperventilating. The cat begins to purr.
I can’t go any further. I collapse onto the mat. I’m pretty sure I’ve strained something. I can’t locate exactly where at the moment, because my entire body is trembling.
Now that I’m on the floor, the cat yawns and stretches, fully extending her front legs and arching her back. She holds the pose. And holds it. And holds it. And darn it all, she’s breathing. Releasing the pose, she takes a deep cleansing breath. Her final word on the subject is to claw at my yoga mat before exiting the room.