Please Remind Me Why I Have Cats.

Because I’m really beginning to wonder. Oh, sure:  I’ve had cats since Before Birth (my parents had one that babysat me when they brought me home from the hospital, which explains A Lot) and have had only one very, very brief period in my life when at least one cat wasn’t a part of the family.
But lately? They are surely making me lose my mind. I’m not sure why I have all these cats in my family. Why, I’m beginning to wonder, didn’t I stick with goldfish, never mind that I couldn’t stand to touch them to take them out of the bowl to change their water, and so they often slipped right down the drain. Or my father would have to Heave the Big Sigh and come into the bathroom and change the water for me. Which is probably why the Fish Years didn’t last very long.
Or rats:  I could have had a rat like I did in college. OK, yeah:  she wasn’t actually MY personal rat. She was the psycho lab’s rat. No, wait:  I meant to type “the psychology lab’s.” Really. It’s better this way, though, isn’t it? If you spent time there when you were in college, you know what I mean.
But this rat was mine in the sense that I named her—Matilda (and you thought I had no memory at all!)--and I was the only one who worked with her. Rats would live in a cage, and cages for rats are made so they can’t escape. If I had rats, rather than cats, we wouldn’t have to pay someone to come twice a day to take care of them when we leave. Just a huge honkin’ bowl of rat chow and some water. Put the Rat Cage in front of the tv and turn it on to Fox News and they’re set for a week. Plus I don’t think rats yell. Do they?
Right now, as I type this, Monk is yowling in The Cat Palace in the back, wanting me to come and let them out. And Garfunkel is yowling on the porch on the front, wanting me to come sit with him. He’s escaped twice this morning, so I’ve been up on a ladder with twist ties (since I couldn’t find my darling husband’s Fence-Mending Stuff, like it would be asking too much for it to be in the same place it was last time I needed it), and I haven’t even finished my coffee.
I refuse to let Monk, et. al., out in the morning when I’m here alone. He’s figured out various ways to escape the backyard, and although we’ve patched every single escape route, he spends his days patrolling the perimeter, yowling and testing the limits. Not unlike a teething two year old.
For a year, they lived happily in the backyard. At night, they go in The Cat Palace. For a while, that was a struggle—Monk didn’t want to go in. Then we got smart and figured out how it works:  Monk needs to be in control.  He’s kind of skitzy, but he’s the alpha cat, and so he needs to have that little boost. So every evening, when it’s time for them to go into the Palace for the night, The EGE makes their treat (chicken lunch meat sliced into slivers and heated oh-so-briefly in the microwave and then carried out to them on a silver serving tray with a linen napkin (if you believe that last bit, you don’t know my husband)) and goes out to the back porch, where they’re waiting. And he talks only to Monk and tells Monk it’s time for him—Monk—to lead everyone in to get their treat.
And it works. Monk leads the others across the yard and through the door and onto their perches, where they wait to be fed. Ah, psychology!
This has been the routine for lo! these many months. Only now? Monk wants Out. He wants Out in the worst way. And he keeps managing to find ways out of the backyard when they’re loose during the day. What does this fiercely determined cat do, once he’s worked so hard to escape? Does he run free? Kill things? Get into fights?
Hell no. He goes into the carport, gets up on the blanket, and goes to sleep. He sleeps there all afternoon, and then he waits for The EGE to let him back in the backyard.
So no problem, right? He wants freedom. Nothing more. It’s so sad it breaks my heart. And why can’t I give him that little bit of freedom to sleep in the carport and know he’s free? Ah. If you Know Cats, you know that every routine is just a suggestion. They’ll follow it happily until:  they don’t want to. And one of these afternoons, the barometric pressure is going to be fluctuating, or the moon will be full, or some little something in the air will set him off, and he’s going exploring.
And our Cat Killing Skanky-Ass Neighbor has set the cat trap again. In her backyard.
So let’s imagine this: I’m here. The cats are in the backyard. I go out to check, and Monk’s gone. I go looking for him and hear him yelling and look over the fence. If I saw him in the trap in the Cat Killing Skanky-Ass Neighbor’s backyard, what would I do? That’s what I don’t want to have to think about. I don’t want to think about what I would do in that situation because anything I think of is something bad. Bad for me, or bad for him. I can’t even think about the things I would love to have happen to my neighbor.
You know what Super Power I’d have, if I could have my choice of any one? Invisibility? Super-Human Strength? The Ability to Make Money Out of Air?
Nope. My Super Power would be Perfect Revenge. Because, despite my efforts to be a Kind & Compassionate Human Being, some people just deserve to be fucked, you know? And I’d be the one to do it, because, honeys, I can think of some FABULOUS revenge.
Like, think of the CEO of some huge, greedy, bonus-happy corporation. Pick your favorite. Then think of the plot of  the movie Trading Places, only without the slapstick humor and hooker love interest and redemption at the end. This CEO would wake up one morning to find himself covered in his own filth, missing many important teeth, lying butt naked ON THE TABLE in the company’s conference room. He’d quickly find out he was broke, that his family had happily abandoned him for a long vacation to an unrevealed island, none of his former business associates would speak to him.
You get the picture. BUT: the best part would be that he couldn’t stop confessing, kind of like OCD and Tourette’s rolled into one amazing tic, where he keeps up a constant stream of all the things the company has done wrong since the day he started there. With names! And amounts! Imagine it.
Well, for my Cat Killing Skanky-Ass Neighbor? I have this recurring fantasy of her being stuck on her roof, completely naked (I have no idea why everyone in my Revenge Fantasies is always naked, but there you go) and unable to get down. I guess the roof would be much higher in My Revenge Fantasy, as In Real Life she could pretty much just jump off. But here’s the Super Power part:  I could make her fly up onto the roof just by looking at her. And make all her clothes fall off. And she would KNOW that. She’d know that any time I looked at her, she’d find herself naked and stranded on the roof. But she couldn’t prove it! She couldn’t call The Authorities, as she loves to do, and say, “Aiee! My neighbor is taking off my clothes and putting me on my roof!” ‘Cause they’d go, “Your neighbor is doing what?”
“She’s taking off my clothes and putting me on the roof with her eyes!”
It would be fabulous. She’d be terrified to come out of her house. She’d board the windows and keep the door barricaded. She could never ANSWER the door, because it might be me! Oh, sure:  she might be able to convince someone to issue a restraining order, so I couldn’t go knock on her door, but she couldn’t keep me from standing in the street, looking, looking, looking.
It makes me so happy to think of this that I giggle and squirm in my chair.
[Whew: I go out to check, since I haven’t heard Garfunkel yell in oh, maybe 10 minutes. That surely means he’s found yet another way to escape. But no:  he’s resting quietly in his day bed. Good news! And more good news:  Cutie Pie is doing better (knock on wood) since his latest trip to the vet last week ($115) and the two newest prescriptions (antibiotic and pain RX), plus a steroid injection. So there is some good news.Never mind that that means I’m giving him drugs twice a day, with all the fun that entails, and will have to go back to the vet for a re-check ($$$) and will probably have to give him all three drugs (about $150 a month, at least) for the rest of his life. He played ball this morning, and that’s worth it.
At least I think it is today.]
But still:  worrying about the cats has become our life. It’s the first thing I think about when I wake up:  how are they going to do today? Who’s going to escape? Who’s going to puke? Squeeky, the Old Lady Cat who’s in her 20’s, drinks water for 15 minutes and then pukes. And hates being alone, so she walks around the house much of the day yelling until someone—human, feline, it doesn’t matter—quits whatever they’re doing and speaks to her. She can’t see very well.
These are the things I think about when I wake up.
I’d so much rather wake up and put my neighbor on the roof with my eyes.