Monday 10 February 2014

Can't Hug Every Cat


As you may or may not know, the Sloth and I have two cats. Roland is large, grey and emits fluff as if it is his second goal in life - his first being to have his mouth full of food at every available opportunity (and the word 'food' can encompass almost anything, edible or not). The second cat is called Mr Giles. He is small, black with a white tuxedo, and has permanently huge cracked-out eyes with giant pupils. He is easily startled but extremely cuddly and his favourite hobbies include headbutting unwarned guests with clumsy affection. He does not understand word/phrases like 'no' and 'ouch' and 'help, your claw has gone right through my skin and feels like it is severing a tendon'.

They are adorable and endlessly entertaining creatures. When Sloth arrived home from work the other day, I greeted her as follows:

Me: Hello darling. Would you like to hear a list of things your cat has been afraid of today?

Sloth: Shouldn't it be your cat, or our cat? How come he's my cat when he's being a prat?

Me: No. As I was saying, things Giles was afraid of today: the bin opening. The bin closing. Briefly, the sound of my slippers on the floor, which he was not afraid of yesterday and has, in the last hour or so, forgotten to be afraid of. The sound of Roland moving on the couch.

Sloth: (mouth twitching)

Me: There's more. He was also afraid of the shininess of the packet of wet food I opened for him, which he actually ran away from with a terror-stricken expression. I actually had to coax him back into the kitchen.

Sloth: (trying desperately not to laugh)

Me: Meanwhile, Roland has played fetch with a piece of wire all day and been relatively good except when he couldn't find it, and decided the best way to remedy that was to howl with misery at me until I located it for him. Which took a while. I ended up on my hands and knees, crawling around the living room. By the time I had found it, he was asleep again.

Sloth: So, a good day then?

Me: Could have been worse.



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