Christine thinks Monty, the senior tomcat, may be trying to kill her.Unfortunately Christine has the straight man role in our household, straight man in the comedy team sense.
She's the George Burns to my Gracie, Martin to my Lewis, Hardy by my Stan Laurel, though I must clarify that I have the weight advantage.
There's been a series of unfortunate events since we've been married that cement the role.
For example, Christine's relatives were coming to visit one Sunday a.m. I heard the shower come on in the bathroom. It was long after we were dressed and ready for visitors.
"I wonder why she's turning the shower on?" I asked myself.
A few moments later a drenched Christine came into the room with a simmering expression and clenched fists. "You didn't push down the shower plunger after you finished. I was just going to rinse out the drain."
There have been many incidents like that, though I'm usually responsible.
The other night Monty was really the culprit. He likes ice water. I don't know at what point we discovered this, probably when he was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be, sticking his nose into one of our glasses.
From to time to time, we drop ice cubes into an old plastic drinking glass for him, or we just deposit ice in his water bowl.
He must think the little half-moon-shaped slivers from the ice maker are fish or something, because he'll sit beside his bowl, pawing at them. Sometimes he drags the bowl around the kitchen in the process.
The other night he dragged it around a while, sloshing out some water, and while I was at the computer, busily typing away I heard something like:
"Ahhhhh," SWOOOOOSHH. THUD.
Christine has a habit of saying things like: "OH, NO!" from the other end of the house.
I call out: "Everything all right?" to a response of dead silence, so that I have to get up and go see what the "oh no" was about. Usually it's something like the leftover fruit salad's gone bad.
Friday I said: "Everything all right" and got no response, so I got up and walked through the den into the kitchen.
Christine had been the source of the "Ahhhhh," SWOOOOOSHH. THUD, having slipped in the sloshed-over water Monty had left behind when he abandoned his water bowl and went to sleep on the sofa.
"Are you OK?" I asked.
"That cat is going to be the death of me," Christine said, having picked herself up and determined she had no broken bones.
Now she has an eye on him, Grace Kelly to Monty's Ray Milland. That certainly puts a new wrinkle on things, but if this little game of cat ;-) and mouse goes on, at least it will keep them from turning on me.
7 comments:
I see your strategy. Divide and conquer. Eggscellenttt.
This post was hilarious! Thanks for the laughs.
I agree with Steve...I particularly love the title!
(A friend of mine keeps a dish towel under her cats' bowls for just this very reason.)
Tried to tell these Rutherford girls that cats are evil
The cats I've had either believed I had infrared vision or tried to kill me too. I don't know how many times I've tripped over a cat sleeping in a doorway at night. Once I slipped down some steps because my black cat was lying on a stair covered in dark carpet, and I could not see him.
Don't let Monty read this; it might give him ideas.
When Donna and I wed some 27 years ago, she got my 2 cats in the bargain. The siamese took to her and they really got along. But the little barn cat I had rescued when she was a kitten would have nothing of this intruder into her home. She became an attack cat, going after Donna at random moments when least suspected. I promised Donna that if we moved to another state (we were in Springfield, IL at the time), the cats would not make the move with us. Surprisingly, I got the job in California a few months later. We did find new homes for the cats although we had to be careful how we described the little hellion to prospective adopting families. Thanks for evoking some good memories (for me, not Donna). :~D
Heh. Sounds like Monty has found a way to brush off the doldrums. cat's get bored too (:
Tell Christine to fill Monty's bowl with Alpo one day, but don't tell him until after he's eaten it. Heh.
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