I mentioned this cat briefly in my last blog. "Peaceful Acquaintence" is how I referred to him. And that is true. He outweighs me by about 6 pounds, more than half my own weight, so "peaceful" seems to me the way to go. He's very quiet and very amenable by day. He adores the larger boy human, and here my suspicion arises. I've been trying (tactfully, of course) to talk to him about some of his rather odd behavior, however. Two of the cats who live here seek me out to play frequently. The third clouts me if I even dare try to occupy the same room as her. If I had a dog biscuit for every time I rounded a corner and was taken unawares by her sudden presence, and had my ears boxed for my ignorance... Anyway. This fourth. I don't have a category for him, he is just odd.
When I try to discuss this with him, what I get are strange stories about his exciting past. I know that he came to this family as a kitten, so I just can't imagine when all these things happened to him. I really don't need to know all that stuff. I just want to know why on earth he changes into someone else at night.
Literally, when the last person is officially in bed, this cat undergoes a transformation. When the last light is off, and the last covers pulled up, it starts. A loud, eerie, echoing howling. When this first started, the humans and I had a time puzzling out who was doing it. The other cats knew, I'm certain, but they stick together. Each night, when the horrible cacophony began, I would leap off my perch on the bed and launch myself into the darkness, my frenzied barking no doubt a reassurance to my dear humans that I was on the job, and close on the trail of this nut case. But when I reached the spot from whence came the noise, there would be no one there. Probably the other cats had warned the culprit off! Then, one night, Grandmother went down and snuck up quietly on the blaggard. It was him! That mild mannered milquetoast who spends the whole day laying around and making not one sound out of his mouth! I was stunned into silence, and that's no small reaction for me. Grandmother found that he had a small toy in his mouth, had apparently hunted it down and caught the poor thing, and after killing it (or knocking it senseless) stood there yodeling over his victory. This toy was thrown away, and the next day, the humans threw away all of the cat toys (and I suspect a few of mine, too, might need to talk to a therapist about that).
But did that stop the lunatic? NO! Deprived of his usual prey, he moved on without apparent transition to other game. That very night, the howling came again, right on schedule. What could he be crowing over now? Well, it was a child's sock! The next night, a small stuffed animal, left lying around. Another innocent! A lego! A clothespin! He had gone mad! Was there no stopping him? What could be done if he had lost all sense of discretion, was completely careless of who or what his victims were?
And now, two nights ago, the final straw! A sure sign that the men in white coats would be coming to take him away! He was found downstairs, in the pitch darkness, bellowing in triumph over an entrapped and now mutilated orange earplug. What would any animal of good sense mean, hunting and snaring such a thing? I suspect no one would care if he wasn't so, well, loud! It's impossible for even a dog to sleep when this dreadful caterwauling is going on! I have begun to fantasize about sending a round of buckshot across his ample stern. The humans talk of sending a foot up his gluteous maximus, but they don't do it. They just keep taking his strange acquisitions away from him, and try to make future possibilities more inaccessible. But nothing works! He just keeps finding things. I suppose that is the meaning of the hunt, after all. Buckshot, I say! BUCKSHOT!!
