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Friday, October 10, 2014

We Must Treat the Kitties Equally

I found her perched atop the dining room door.
“I thought we discussed this last year,” I say.
Liza Bean Bitey, of the Minneapolis Biteys, grins.  “One can see so much more from atop something, don’t you agree?”
I pull off my gloves, my hat, my coat, my scarf, but I leave my leg warmers on.  No need to be hasty.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “but I was ignoring you.  What did you say?”
“First,” she says, “shall we get the afternoon treat out of the way?”  She leaps, springboarding from my shoulder down to the couch and then down to the hardwood floor, where the sound of her soft, tiny paws fade into the distance as she trots to the kitchen.
Liza Bean Bitey gets a third of a can of cat food every day upon my return from work, and there’s no use arguing about it.  She’s become quite fixated on this; and previous attempts to postpone it until, say, after one gets the mail have been met with raucous, yowling disapproval.
The kitty will not be denied.
A third of a can of Mariner’s Choice later, and there’s a knock on the door.
It’s not unusual for me to ignore a knock at the door.  My modus operandi, then, is to walk into the second-floor porch and wait for the person to come out through the first-floor porch.  If I know them, I will call out and run down to open the door.
If I don’t know them, they are free to move along and take their literature regarding corrective shirts for the chronically stooped with them. 
“Who could that be…” I mutter, wandering toward the porch door.
Behind me, there is the small and unmistakeable sound of a cat clearing her throat. 
I turn around, pupils expanding, the icy hand of inevitability crawling up my spine.
“That bit about an extra treat for Dolly last night,” she began.
I shake my head, and it just keeps shaking. “No,” I whisper.
“Now that wasn’t very nice, was it?”
“No,” I whisper, head continuing its dance of denial. 
“We all suffer when you practice, don’t we?  Not just Dolly?”
My mouth drops open.
There is another knock at the door.
I look toward the door, look back to Liza Bean.  “Who is it?”
She yawns elaborately, a show of tiny, razor-like teeth.  Raising her right paw, she flexes and unflexes her claws a number of times, gazes into its wee palm, revels in how small and deadly she is.
“It’s Ted.”
The blood runs out of my head, pools at my feet, and threatens to stay there.  Ted is a neighbor, a man with notoriously bad breath and permanent spittle at the corners of his mouth. 
“Why?”
“Ohhh,” she drawls.  “He stopped last night while you were practicing.  You didn’t answer the door, of course, so I called down to him from the porch.  He wanted to know if we had a snow-removal service, but now he’s under the impression that you’re interested in video games. Don't know where he would've gotten that idea...  Anyway, Call of Duty, was that it?  I told him to come back today.”
I walk slowly toward the steps to the front door.  At the landing, I can see Ted on the porch.  One arm is holding his laptop, the other is holding a pizza box.
Ted really likes explaining stuff.
I look back up the steps, where Liza Bean Bitey, of the Minneapolis Biteys, sits. 
She is smiling.  “You really can see a lot from where I’m sitting,” she says. 

14 comments:

Shelly said...

The mind and motives of a ticked off kitty are much too complex for simple humans to comprehend. Always, always watch your back...

vanilla said...

Cute, loveable she may be. But focused on revenge, she can display a bit of a mean streak, no?

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
Cruel and furtive get-back that cat thought up!!! YAM xx

jenny_o said...

"We all suffer when you practice, don't we?"

It's the clarinet, is it not? So, how IS that coming along? I'm sure LB exaggerates, the better to gain delicious morsels of fishy crunchiness. Maybe you could give some of those to Ted, too. Can't make the bad breath any worse, can it?

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry to say it...but...you deserved it Pearl. Really...treats for one cat and not the other?????

Joanne Noragon said...

Evil, is all I have to say.

Gigi said...

Cats, I hear, can be quite vindictive when provoked. I suppose you've learned your lesson then?

Chicken said...

Liza Jane Bitey plays hardball. You should put that on a t-shirt and wear it.

Should Fish More said...

I wouldn't trust that cat, nor should you. The Party Palace here is still calling me about the scratches in the pool table, and I haven't found my rolex since she left.

River said...

Never ever forget to treat Liza Bean!
Hope at least the pizza was good.

Jo-Anne's Ramblings said...

Oh my goodness those kitties

The Jules said...

I feel I must spend more time atop things now. Very atop.

Watson said...

I'm speechless! And I'm going to keep a keen eye on Carissa the cat, laying there innocently cleaning her paws.

savannah said...

yet another reason why, except for the MITM, i live alone! if you know what i mean. xoxoxox