Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Take THAT!

Of our three pets, Sergeant Laser J. Fletcher, or "Sarge," is the worst. I say this lovingly, of course, but he's a real asshole. He doesn't let you hold him. He tries to bite your hand when you pet him. Every morning he jumps up onto my bedside table and screams in my face until I feed him. He doesn't come out of the bedroom unless he's hungry. I'm pretty sure none of our friends believe he exists. Whenever we mention him they ask, "Where is he?" Oh, he's just where he always is, sitting on top of the shelves in the back corner, by the air conditioner, where he stares at us and occasionally emits little squeaking noises when he yawns.

Why do we tolerate such lousy pet behavior? Because of this:



And this:



And this:


He is so impossibly cute.

So anyway, yesterday morning, I was getting ready for work when I heard Devin in the other room. "Sarge peed on the floor."

"No he didn't." I walked out, mascara wand still in hand, to inspect the alleged pee. There was a small puddle on the hardwood floor.

"That's not from him. It must have been Seamus." Now I don't know why I went and blamed the dog when he has no history of ever having an accident inside the house. In fact, it is Sarge who has peed on things many many times, though that was when he was still a kitten. (And a few months ago in a pile of dirty laundry...)

"He must not like the new litter you bought them," Devin concluded.

In one of my recent I'm Going To Save The Environment moves, I bought natural pine pellets from Trader Joe's instead of their usual Arm & Hammer cat litter. I figured they'd enjoy using natural pine instead of whatever mystery substance makes up regular cat litter. Perhaps I was wrong about this...but the jury was still out on who peed on the floor and why.

Then this morning as I was in and out of sleep, I felt Sarge jump onto the bed. He sat still for a moment down by our feet. "Oh yay!" I thought to myself. He never sits on the bed with us. This is such a treat. And just like that, he hopped back down.

I fell back asleep.

It must have only been for a few minutes, and then I opened my eyes again and immediately noticed something felt weird down at my feet. No, wait, not weird. Wet. Yes it's wet.

I sat up and noticed there was a big ol' puddle on the blanket.

Sarge!

So this morning I made a special trip to the store to buy his precious normal kitty litter. I was afraid if I left it until after work, he'd spend the day peeing all over our new couch.

When I got back from the store, I changed his litter and put out a new dish of food. Then I walked into our bedroom where Sarge was sitting, as usual, on top of the shelves. I stared at him. He stared at me. Then he made a "AAaaannnmmm" sort of noise.

I decided to take that as a thank you.

17 comments:

Unknown said...

Damn. Your cat pissed on you. While you were in your bed. And you slept in it.

From now on, when things aren't going so well for me, I'll remember this post and think to myself, "Well, at least I didn't sleep in cat pee."

So, thank you is what I'm trying to say.

JenBun said...

I really don't know what to say to this.

I keep thinking, "Kitty golden showers..."

Yuck!

m said...

Oh my god he is ADORABLE!

My sister has a million-year-old cat who doesn't like using a litter box at all. There's nothing wrong with her (hundreds of dollars of tests have proved this), she just prefers carpet. My sister's condo smells like pure joy, in case you were wondering.

JulieGong said...

no duh your cat peed all of the place. just picture putting your bare ass in a bunch of pine pellets. not fun. not fun at all. i know... from experience. not because i peed in a cat's litter box filled with the stuff but because my bare ass has in fact touched pine bark before.

Katelin said...

haha sarge is running the house it sounds like. what a bad ass peeing cat, haha :)

raych said...

my roomate's cat peed on my bed shortly after i moved in.

worse WELCOME gift i ever received

Anonymous said...

It's Kristen. Sarge is so damn cute. He deserves a cute kitty award.

zlionsfan said...

It should be easy to tell the difference between dog pee and cat pee. Dog pee smells vaguely bad. Cat pee smells like someone opened a chemical factory in your house.

I'm glad, in a way, that I'm not the only one who probably hears a cat peeing in the night and fervently hopes that the next sound is the sound of litter being moved.

For what it's worth, if a cat suddenly sits up and starts pawing rapidly at the covers, it's not always because he or she wants to get beneath them. (Also, if it occasionally happens when you are not in the bed, and you don't mind people thinking you are crazy, covering your bed with something that cats will not confuse for litter is a good idea. I use flattened cardboard boxes. Looks funny, but it beats washing the covers an extra time each week.)

Peter said...

If it makes you feel any better, I love peeing on pine trees.

Though I'm not sure why that would make you feel better...

Rahul said...

I just kept thinkg of Beetle Baily the whole time I read this

Hollywood Sucker said...

surviving- Just like I think to myself, "Well, at least I'm not a giant loser like Chris."

jenbun- Ugh. Well you said it, not me.

mindy- Yes he is adorable, but he sucks.

julie- Well I guess I hadn't thought of it from his perspective.

katelin- It's not fair. I dont' know how he got control of everything.

raych- Well at least it was your roommate's cat and not your roommate.

zlion- The sound of them digging in the litter in the middle of the night always scares me at first because I'm like "Ah! What's that noise!?"

Peter- No, you're right. That makes me feel better.

RS27- I don't really know what Beetle Bailey is, but I'll just hope that's a good thing?

Anonymous said...

Beetle Bailey is an old school newspaper comic strip. It's a military based strip, sort of a MASH for the newspapers.

Your cat is very cute! I know little to nothing about kitty litter, other than that I think, environment or no, as long as it cancels out any smells, it's good in my book.

Anonymous said...

I just realized I forgot to clarify the Beetle Baily comment for you further. One of the main characters in the strip is named "Sgt. Snorkel", but everyone just calls him "Sarge."

nicole antoinette said...

Thank you for further solidifying why I'm never ever getting a cat.

Well, also because I'm allergic, but.. you know..

Anonymous said...

Yeah, cats get pretty Raymond Babbitt on litter. If the cat's over age 2, then the chance of you successfully changing the habits of a cat so as to go green are pretty slim. It's an olfactory thing.

A lot of what Lionsfan said is pretty much spot on. There's no mistaking the chemical smell of cat urine, that's for sure.

Cheers (from a lifelong cat lover),
S.Amou

gunn said...

Realizing I'm against the grain as cat lovers go, but why would you maintain, love, feed, humor and care for a "pet" that shows complete disdain for your very being, demonstrates dominance and refuses to interact in any manner.
You might as well get a ceramic animal and decorate your home around it.

Mollie said...

Ahh thankfully someone else with a hedonistic demon for a cat. I can't tell you how close I've come to animal abuse, but held myself back! Every single morning, 5:30am, he jumps on the bed Right In My Face and meows until I get up and give him his morning treat. His brother, whom I finally had to re-home was the one with the peeing on things out of spite problem.