Here we go, my first time being a cat owner as an adult:
Never before have I had a cat want attention from only one person. It's always been everyone or not one. General Pixel, however, only seems to want attention from my fiance at all times of the day. When he leaves the house she shits in the floor in front of the door and meows for ten minutes like he's made of magic and cat nip or some shit. I'm not sad to see him leave a few hours of the day and I'm about to marry the bag of dicks.
He's trying to sleep, but she wants lovins. Right meow.
When she wants attention, it's not a petting she wants. It's nuzzling... or something like that. She wants you to rub your face and nose against her head and move it down her neck and back. Like, "PET ME WITH YOUR FACE, HUMAN!" What? I didn't even know that was a thing...
Sometimes, and by sometimes I mean daily, if you are busy or reading or playing a game, she will sit on your chest and lay against your face with her spine just under your nose, making you look like you have a massive cat mustache. Or she will sit in front of your face, blocking one of your eyes like a fuzzy eye patch with a bad attitude.
My future husband mustache you a cat-related question.
Trash. She plays with trash. Not nasty trash, we keep that away from her (at least we try). But in her cat tube/safe haven/evil lair she has a square of bubble wrap, crinkly candy wrappers, the bag the candies came in, crinkly paper, a Walmart bag, my first bra (literally, my first bra that was bought for me over 12 years ago that I've kept all this time because it still fits *sad face*), and a balled up gas station receipt. It's like the 12 Day of Christmas in that tube. Know what's not in there? The toys we actually spent money on. Yeah, not making that mistake again. And, yes, it's cute when she's going H.A.M. on the bubble wrap but not when we have to chase her down and take a Trojan condom wrapper from her because no, just no.
Along with paper type trash, she also chases, plays with, and sometimes eats bugs. Giant ants and spiders are batted around the room like she's training to become a professional hockey player. And, yes, she eats them. Like she did to the tiny ant just now...
There is also the sock fetish. She's constantly sneaking into our housemate's room and stealing his socks, and hiding them in her tube or under our bed or under the couch in the living room. She also loves to play with our dirty socks. I don't know why the dirty ones. The first time I was this happen I yelled to my fiance, "Don't let her play with our dirty socks! That's nasty!" To which he responds, "She licks her butthole!" Well... he's right...
Yes, Pixel, we see you licking your butthole and stealing our dirty socks...
Any time someone is scooping her litter she does one of three things:
- She waits until you are about halfway finished and decides she needs to poop. So you abandon the job entirely and leave one half of the litter box full of hardened poo and ENORMOUS clumps of piss.
- She waits until you are completely finished and then poops in the fresh, clean litter. So you walk away mumbling "fuck it".
- She just sits and watches you like a supervisor that insists on micro managing this simple task. It's almost as if she's trying to figure out what you're doing. I have to admit, she probably does think we're crazy, or stupid, or both. We made such a big deal about her finally learning to bury her poop with the litter, and then here we are digging it up.
She poops and pees more than any other cat I have ever had, and I used to own MULTIPLE cats. At one time in grade school I know for sure that I owned five and never had to scoop this much litter. We have two litter boxes for General Pixel. TWO. And she fills them up so quickly. She's a shit storm of piss and rage and I have no idea why. Seriously, I NEVER see her drink water but she pees like a river. Her clumps of cat urine are the size of small shoes, at least.
She prefers the old litter box and I don't know why. We first adopted her off of the front porch of a sweet lady with too many cats when she was just six weeks old. She was so tiny she fit in one of my hands. She's three or four times that size now, if not bigger, so we bought her a much larger litter box and moved the small kitten-sized litter box downstairs for her convenience. She prefers that one. She will run downstairs at full speed as fast as she can to poop in her tiny litter box. Why, Pixel, why!?
She has pounced on my eyelashes. I wish I were making that up. Here I am lying in bed with my fiance, having a normal(-ish) conversation, when the cat pounces on my eye. I didn't know what she was doing so I just picked her up and put her on the other side of my bed, went back to talking like a mostly normal person, and BAM! She pounces on my eye again. What the hell? So I swat her behind and move her again, when she does it a third time! I watch her a little closer and realize she's staring hardcore at my eyes, but not into them (if that makes sense at all). Crazy ball of fluff had it out for my lashes. i just can't even....
It has recently been discovered by the house's feline terror that I have a naval piercing. Upon this discovery and any time she remembers about it she will swat, paw, and gnaw on my naval ring. This is where I feel like I'm borderline hitting mom-mode because I think to myself, "Well, it doesn't hurt, she's being good, and she's not breaking anything, so I'll just let her play with my belly button ring while I'm wearing it." Seriously, I just want her to behave so bad that I'll let her play with my body jewelry while I'm wearing it. Just calm the fuck down, cat, and I'll let you gnaw on these bolts in my skin!
We can't throw away empty boxes because they are her backup lairs. She has her cat tube and any box with a small hole in it. Such as soda boxes, the plastic covered boxes of ramen noodle, and the bulk size boxes we buy her canned food in. So long as you don't tear the whole top off, and just rip a small hole, she will slither in like a footed snake and just poke her head out like a submarine telescope. It's adorable until you realize there's an empty box in almost every room of the house...
She has and plays her own games on my tablet. She's even beaten her own high score. it was in the 400s but now it's over 1000. The strange thing is, when she realizes she can't get the little characters through the glass screen she starts to stick her paws under the tablet. Does she think they're under it? Or that she's looking through a glass front door?
The lazer dot on the tablet. Thank you, whoever thought of this.
Our housemate has a female chihuahua, Bella. Now, this chihuahua likes to hump our cat daily, multiple times a day. he says that's how female dogs show that they like each other, like friends. Come to think of it, I know several people who dry hump their friends, so that's nothing new. The strange thing is that Pixel takes it most of the time, and that's odd because she's usually a bitch about everything. She doesn't try to move or run away or anything, like it doesn't even faze her. But she also doesn't make any noises. She just sits there as Bella humps her, like she's waiting for the dog to finish and roll over. It looks like they're lesbians in a straight marriage and Pixel is the wife who is like, "Hurry up, I've got things to do." Then there's the off chance that Pixel has had enough and she rolls over to claw and bite while rabbit kicking Bella's belly. There is no middle ground with this lunatic cat.
She has a scratching post. She loves the scratching post. It lays in the floor. She also loves to stand right next to the scratching post, make eye contact with us, and begin scratching the carpet next to her post. It's like the episode of Orange is the New Black where Crazy Eyes makes crazy eye contact while pissing in the floor of Piper's cell. Just like...really? You're doing this RIGHT THERE!? And she's like "What are you going to do about it? That's what I thought."
You're not gonna do a damn thing.
She does the 3-Pet-Walk-Away. She lets me pet her a total of three times before walking away like she wants nothing else to do with me. Most of the time she walks over to my fiance for face-petting and stares me down while it's happening. It's like she wants to throw in my face that someone else is petting her and I'm not allowed. No, you're not a bitch at all, are you, Pixel?
If I'm in the bathroom she HAS to be in there with me and will make her way in there. When this first happened she would stick her paw under the door and pull the bathroom door open. Whaaat? I didn't even know cats could do that. Anyway, General Pixel likes to on the side of the tub or sin on my lap or play in the drain of the sink or the tub. She also likes to claw at the tall tower of toilet paper like it's another scratching post. I've gotten so used to it that I leave the bathroom door cracked for her because I know she'll be in there soon. Oh, and if I lock her out she'll sit at the door and meow.
Yes, I'm on the toilet. Oh, okay, sure, I'll pet you. Yeah, now is fine.
She's afraid of the dark. Felines have excellent vision in the dark, but that does not make our cat a brave warrior of the night. If she is in a room and you turn off the light she will make for the nearest exit and go towards the light. My fiance insists on leaving the hallway light or our lamp on for her at least until sunrise. Yes, a nightlight for the cat, it would be more believable if I were making it up.
Pixel will not sleep alone and hates to be in a room alone. If everyone leaves a room or she wakes up and finds herself alone in a room she will hunt down the nearest human and play or sleep across the room from them or next to them. At night she sleeps in our bed with us. She even has a side of the bed. She sleeps against the wall or between us or on us, no exceptions.
You can never leave me alone... or turn off the light.
She sleeps all day. Like, 18 hours all day. I'm not sure if it's because she's growing or if it's because she's storing and building up energy so for the six hours she's awake she can go completely ape shit and fuck up everything, jumping all over the place, clawing up everything she can get her claws into, and bite all things smaller than her mouth and most things bigger. She was biting a small bag of noodles today. Why? Why a small bag of noodles!? It's a daily six hours of WTF!? followed by 18 hours of IS SHE SLEEPING AGAIN!?
I have so many pictures of her like this. Just sleeping away. She's actually sleeping next to me right now...
I can't help but feel like this strange, picky cat is a prequel to parenthood for us will all the strange things we're willing to do for her, from letting her play with body jewelry to keep her behaving and downloading special games for her to play on my tablet. I also can't help but feel like she's so damn mean and ornery that she will still be alive by the time we become parents. This cat will probably outlive our grandchildren.
But, this is the list of strange things my cat does. If I think of more I will update the list because I'm sure as time goes on this cat will only get stranger and even more stubborn.
Oh joy.
-Tome Raider
I see you've put out some clothes to dress in after your hot, long-awaited shower. Yes, these will be excellent for me to sit on, thank you. "Um, you're welcome, General Pixel...?"
