DeadLaszlo.Com | Columns | Brainquake

Wednesday, March 8, 2000

When I started 1999, I had one cat. It's fifteen months later, and I have six. Six cats.

Lemme say that again, since I have trouble believing it myself. I have six cats.

I've had a small black cat named Isis since early 1995. She belonged to a roommate who moved in with his girlfriend and couldn't bring the little girl. She's a sweetheart, weighs about five ounces and hardly peeps at all. Great cat for trying to avoid paying the pet deposit at apartments.

Then, last year, when I started travelling a lot for my job, my girlfriend Lisa convinced me that rather than having to come to my apartment each weekend, it would be better for Isis to stay over at her house... you know, until I was done travelling. It sounded like a good idea at the time. Really, it did.

Before I knew it, Isis was ignoring me when I would come over to visit. When she would acknowledge my existence, she would give me a look that translates easily to, "How could you leave me here... with them?"

You see, Lisa has three cats of her own. Her youngest cat, Winston, took an immediate interest in Isis. He's hard to ignore, since he's a very stout 20+ pound boy. According to the vet, 'he's not fat... he's big-boned..' (He swore up and down that he had never seen an episode of South Park.) Winnie just has to be close to Isis... touching her... laying on top of her, smothering her.

She wanted nothing to do with him. Still doesn't , but at least now she tolerates him. She has to, since Lisa and I moved in together last fall.

The other two cats pretty much ignore Isis. Squid, Lisa's girl cat, is a little ninny who is about as skittish an animal as you'll see. She craves attention, but runs at the first sign of anyone but her mommy coming towards her.

Dodo, the oldest cat in the house, is a crotchety old man with gobby, crusty eyes. He likes to scratch his head on the sharpest object available -- if your elbow isn't available, there's always the metal sticking out form the broken lawn chair arm.

When I moved in, Winston became my cat. I don't know why this happened or how. All I know is, Win-bobble will incessantly rub on me whenever he's walking by, or curl up on my chest when I'm going to sleep. A 20-pound weight on your rib cage does a lot for your slumber, lemme tell you.

In November, we moved in to a four-bedroom house. We tell our friends that it's so we could have more space, that the apartment was too crowded. The truth? The damned cats demanded it. They whispered in our ears at night, "We need a yard... we need room to chase each other... we need a house."

The second week of January, I come home from work, and Lisa's grinning at me. "Where's your boy?" I don't know, dammit, I just got home. "Go look in your room... I think he's on your bed being cute." (Being cute is a full-time occupation for the fuzzy cretins, and I'm sure that if I go up there he won't be doing anything cute. I've already given up looking when she says "Oh! Look at [whoever]! So cute! By the time I look, they're done doing whatever it is they were doing, so I've quit trying.)

I find Winston hunched at the side of my bed, staring intently at something underneath. I'm about to yell downstairs to Lisa that one of the neighborhood cats has gotten in the house, when she's right beside me, grinning wider than before. "Meet number five." She was waiting for Lisa at Petco, being cute as all get-out. We named her Tippi, because of the crazy little white dot at the end of her tail.

We had five cats. I couldn't get the thought out of my head. "God almighty, we have five cats. How in God's name did I get five cats?" I was thinking this when we went to Petco to get more cat litter (to answer the next question from the audience, we have four litter boxes that get cleaned every third day) when I met Buster. He was in the cage that Tippi had occupied seven days before. He wanted out of that cage so damned bad, and when we opened the door, he came out and hugged me. Put one paw on each of my shoulders and squeezed, I swear to God.

Last month, my friends Tim and Lisa got married. We wanted to have our own momentos from the reception, so we ran to the store and got a digital camera, something I've had my eye on for a long time. We took 25 pictures of the reception. Since then, we've taken 250 pictures of the cats. Just documenting the lunacy, beating our friends and co-workers senseless with their furry bedlam.

Lisa and I are nowhere near ready to start a family. We really don't need to, you see... these nutjobs are our kids. A lot easier to maintain, less expensive, and cuter and smaller. We joke that, sooner or later, schoolkids will pass by our house and speak in hushed whispers, "Look there... that's the house where the cat people live."

I don't know how long we'll have six, though, since Buster doesn't seem too happy about being the sixth cat. he wants to be Cat Numero Uno, and has now started spraying everything in sight. There's no remedy for sprayers, and I think he's going to have to go back to Petco tonight. Breaks my heart... he's really a sweet cat. C'est la vie.

Anyway, next weekend, Lisa's mother is going out of town for a week. We have to take care of her cat Toby. We'll be back to six in no time. Because, having seven cats would be just... what? What?