We have a bad little cat.
Morgan, our smart cat, is ravishingly sleek and pretty, and frighteningly bright. She controls our entire household. She regards its members as “Daddy” (highly valued and fun to torment), “Not-Daddy” ( a useful servant), and “The Pet Thing She Beats On and Sometimes Washes” (luckily Viviane is covered in luxuriant fluffy fur, which protects her from much of the daily abuse.)
Recently, the bad cat has developed a habit of climbing up from my lap (her sleeping place from two to five a.m.) and biting my arm in the same kind of neat, not-quite-breaking-the-skin, dainty but not pleasant bites she uses to indicate dissatisfaction with petting method. She bites in a row, little bites, until I wake up, go to throw this attacker off me, realize that it’s Morgan and she’s honoring me with her attention, and attempt to return to sleep while being bitten.
She also uses this method to neatly, row by row, shred boxes and documents (see picture). The things we do, and put up with, for love.
You can see D is smiling in his sleep because he’s not the one she’s bothering. “Do it to Julia Suzanne! Do it to Suzanne!”
We tolerate Morgan’s abuse because our household practices the religion of Cat Non-Disturber.
I lived for two years in a Cat Disturber household, where if a cat got on your lap right when you were going to get up you just casually removed the cat from your lap. Well, not my lap, of course, but the Disturbers’ laps. Every time I saw them do it I felt like the universe was going to crack apart and explode.
Of course, our house also practises “Cat Scooper-Upper“; one of my beloved friend-muse-patrons has a Consent-Based Cat Interaction household, where scooping a kitty up into your arms is heresy. We all choose our own way to worship; not judging anybody else’s. Just trying to get along with Herself, day to day. What’s your Cat Religion?
