The Secret Lives of Cats

Hi, everyone. This is Katie, Renée's cat. Renée is trying to recover from her day (doctor's appointment, complete with four painful shots; work, complete with difficult customers; and a dead car battery), so I'm taking over her blog for the night. No, I did not get this idea from author Meg Cabot's blog entries by Britney Spears. Anyhow, here's how my average day goes.

I woke up this early this morning. It was raining, and no one else was awake yet. Since that meant I couldn't play with/get food from anyone, I decided to go back to sleep. I must admit, though, that I first contemplated jumping onto Renée's bed, biting her, and leaving, which I've done in the past. (It was great fun, especially when she had to go all the way downstairs in the dark at midnight to find bandaids and Neosporin.) Unfortunately, Renée began sleeping with her door shut a couple years ago, and since then I've had no opportunity to bite-and-run. I do have fun slinking into her room before she goes to sleep, letting her get all cozy in bed, and then crying to be let out. She comes up with the most creative insults this way.

At any rate, I went back to sleep. Renée woke up to go jogging, and I saw my golden opportunity. She came down the stairs looking like a wreck (no contacts, hair in ponytail, wearing shorts and tank top with white sneakers and - gag me - black socks. I'm a cat, and even I understand what kind of fashion gaffe this is.). Anyway, I followed her, meowing. She snapped, "Not now, Katie, I'm busy." I sat on the stairs and offered up my most pitiful meows, but the cold-hearted witch was not swayed. She put in her iPod and left. I hoped that she got chased by every dog in the neighborhood.

I laid down on the stairs in the sun to heal my injured spirits. I was hungry! I hadn't eaten for a whole...three hours! I might waste away by the time she got back.

But when she returned half an hour later, looking even grosser than when she'd left, I meowed again. She cooed, "Hi, Katie Cat!" in the most irritatingly chipper voice possible. (I'd say it was because of the endorphins, but this is the voice she always uses with me.) She went on though, going, "Aww you hungwy? Oh, who's my big hungwy kitty?! Do you want some food? "

Wanting food? Me? Whatever gave you that idea? Was it when I sat by my food bowl and cried?!

She shoveled out a minuscule amount of cat food and patted me on the head before going off to take a shower. I ate half a mouthful of food and realized I wasn't that hungry after all.

When our paths crossed again, she was back in a bad mood. I was patiently waiting on the stairs to play our favorite game, one that I have entitled Slap the Hell Out of the Humans' Hands Through the Slats on the Staircase, or SHOHHTSS for short. She let me get a couple slaps in, but then lectured me: "NO. BITING. THAT'S. BAD. BAD CAT. NO." Then she left. She really ought to recheck the rules; if she did, she'd know that bites are worth 80 thousand bonus points. SO she really can't blame me for my mad skillz.

I didn't see her again until the evening, and her mood was back to annoyingly chipper. "Who's my pretty kitty?" she gushed as soon as she saw me lounging on the bed, resting from the exercise I almost considered partaking in today. "Who's the pretty kitty?!"

Um, I am. I'm the "pretty kitty" every time you ask this stupid question.

Every. Freaking. Time.

I think she may have a personality disorder. Why else would she switch so quickly from annoyed to loving? Maybe humans don't consider six hours to be a short amount of time. Maybe to them, it's a sufficient amount of time for mood changes. But that's silly. I mean, these are the same creatures that think eight hours of sleep is plenty. They clearly need to straighten out their priorities.

Anyway, I was sick of her mood issues and gushing, so I left. I'm now off to go sleep on the bathroom rug, right next to the door, so that if she goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night she'll notice me and maybe feed me, play with me, or fill a Dixie bathroom cup with water and let me drink it/splash it all over the floor. First, though, I'll throw up right here next to the computer. On the white carpet. This will be EPIC.

Good night!

Eau de Market Basket

I just returned home from working the "five to close" shift at the MB (!!!), feeling lonely and dejected because

a.) I'm missing my aunt's "Watch the Fireworks from my Back Porch" cookout.
b.) I am the ONLY one missing aforementioned cookout.
c.) Someone nearby is setting off fireworks which I can hear but cannot see, which only serves to rub the "ha-ha, loser, you had work" salt in my figurative wound.

So I walked into the house, happy at least to see that the cat was waiting for me at the door. So I sat down on the stairs, the epitome of one who is, as previously mentioned, lonely and dejected, and said to the cat, "Come sit with me, Katie. I'm lonely and I need SOMEONE to hang out with." (On the way home from work, I seriously considered finding some dolls and large stuffed animals in the attic, setting them up around the kitchen table, cooking myself a veggie burger, and having an imaginary cookout. You think I'm kidding. I'm really not. But that was too pathetic, not to mention borderline psychotic. )

Anyway, the cat did her whole "I do not follow your foolish whims, lower life form. I am a CAT" stare but eventually hopped up on the step next to me and let me pat her a little. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. This is the cat who refuses to visit me when I am deathly ill and am using up my last ounces of energy to snap my fingers and cluck my tongue and whistle, all in hopes of enticing the cat to visit so I don't feel like a complete doof. Her usual response is to sit innocently in the hallway just outside the door, looking at me as if to say, "I wish I knew what you were trying to say to me. I haven't the faintest idea what you're getting at. Toodles, off to cry until someone feeds me."

So anyway, the cat was standing next to me, allowing me to pat her, then she gave my work-issued smock a sniff and subtly began to edge away. I know why: the smell of Market Basket. (It's not the smell of me. Underneath the smock, I smell flowery and shower-fresh.)

I always knew that Market Basket has a very distinct smell. It's sort of metallic, which I suppose comes from the canned goods, money, etc. But my cat, who has smelled both cans and money before, wouldn't shy away from them. So I must conclude that there is more to the MB's odor than meets the nose. I have broken it down as follows:

Base scent: Metal (coins, cans, carriages, doors, checkout console-thingies, etc.)
With overtones of: Depression, dismay, boredom, false perkiness, grocery items, and soul-crushing defeat
And undertones of: Mild physical pain (from the standing, dontcha know), resentment (of both customers and anyone who ISN'T working at Market Basket), and (surprise!) slight amusement (at the ridiculousness of a good number of the things that go down while one is on duty)

Hmmm, speaking of smell....it seems that a skunk has decided to traipse through my yard. I'm so glad it's summer and ALL THE WINDOWS ARE OPEN. Deee-lish.

As I write this, I'm venting to Jess via AIM, because not only is she my best friend (despite my uncanny ability to turn HER complaints into complaints of my own...because I'm a narcissist and that's what we do best), but she also works at Soul Crushers, Inc. (aka the MB). As such, she is very sympathetic, even when I ramble on for ages without allowing her to get an IM in edgewise:

Me: and then i felt stupid later because i was putting hamburger and hot dog rolls in a bag myself (b/c they're bread and you know how you bag it yourself) and i went to go put the hamburger rolls in with the hot dog ones and i was like (in my head) hmm, that won't all fit. so I took out the hamburger rolls and grabbed the bag with just the two packages of hot dog rolls and the customer dude took the bag and went...
Me: "renee, I'm just gonna rearrange these because i don't want squished hot dog rolls."
Me: okay. bastard.
Me: i mean, a.) how exactly will two packages of hot dog rolls squish EACH OTHER?
Jess: people like that are annoying.
Me: b.) you don't need to ANNOUNCE it to me. I mean, i know I'm an employee and you're a customer so you can just piss all over me if you feel like it, but it's RUDE.
Me: and c.) YOU DON'T KNOW ME. DON'T CALL ME BY NAME JUST BECAUSE MY TAG SAYS IT.
Me: that's in case you're being accidentally fed into the cardboard compactor in the back and you need to know my name so you can shout "RENEE! HELP ME! I'M BEING FED INTO THE CARDBOARD COMPACTOR!" and specifically get my attention.
Jess: because that happens all the time. xD but I get what you're saying.
Me: oh, it WOULD have happened if i had anything to say about it.
Me: except in that scenario, the customer would be screaming, "RENEE! NO! I'M SORRY! PLEASE DON'T FEED ME TO THE CARDBOARD COMPACTOR!"

That's right. Beg for mercy. Do it. Remember who you're dealing with. This chick is crazy. We're talking "assigns-a-smell-to-her-place-of-employment, contemplates-imaginary-parties-with-imaginary-guests, fantasizes-about-feeding-customers-to-the-cardboard-compactor" CRAZY.

And then she blogs about it.

That's either very healthy (cathartic) or very disturbing ("Publicizes fantasy life," my future shrink will perhaps note.)

At any rate, it's ME. Peace out (for now).