Peek, Poke, Pickle and Piggy

I'm sitting in bed perusing my emails and checking out the current news feeds when I hear a low rumble emanate from the foot of my bed. I look behind the foothills made up by my feet under the covers.  Just over the top lay Sassy, our female calico cat.  Her ears are perked up, she is staring in the direction of the bedroom door, growling.  Bewildered, I look toward the door to see what she is upset about.  I don't see anything. She quiets.  I sit back and the low rumble begins again.  I again look toward the door and the foot of my bed.  I see nothing but Sassy is definitely irritated.  Wondering what she is upset about I look toward the edge of the foot of my bed expecting to see another cat lying just out of sight.  But it is not to be.  And then it appears.

As I scan the bottom of the bed listening to the fuzzy semi-truck named Sassy idling in warning mode, I detect movement.  Just inches from her face two tiny points of fuzz begin to rise slowly above the foot of the bed like the sun rising in the morning.  Triangular points of fur begin to form and grow larger.  Then the rounded curve of fuzz between the triangular fur appears.  It continues to rise, almost in slow motion.  Sassy's growls grow in intensity.  Tiny whiskers rise above the bed covers and then two huge, dark eyeballs come into view giving the impression of a double moon rising in the east.  Sassy's growls are reaching a crescendo as the full face of Piggy, her brother, appear just above the bedspread.

Piggy's eyes are so full of mischief they appear as if the pools of darkness might spill out over the edge and stain the side of the bed with dark ink spots. As with any sibling, Piggy ignores the warning sounds of Sassy and peers at her with a taunting challenge.  Sassy is not amused. Piggy is totally amused and ready to poke and prod her into action.  Although Piggy knows that Sassy can shred him if she wanted and that he is putting himself into a very dangerous pickle, he could care less.  He is her brother, he wants to torture and irritate her and he will do just that no matter what.

As his face reaches full moon status, Sassy's growls culminate.  As I watch this, I know what's going to happen.  There's going to be a rumble.  Someone is going to get roughed up and all I'm going to hear is a bunch of fur-flying howls and shrieks.  I'm not in the mood for that.

"Piggy!", I yell. "Stop it!"

Piggy looks at me and jumps down.  His mischievous eyes still filled with prodding and an inherent need to poke fun at his sister.  He walks around the bed to my left side.  He disappears out-of-sight. I glance down and figure it's over. Then I hear the growl again. 

Not again, I think.  

I look over the side of the bed.  As Sassy's growl heightens in intensity, I suddenly see two fuzzy triangles begin to appear over the side of the bed.  Then the crescent fuzz and the pools of living ink show themselves. Sassy growls louder.  Piggy's face appears on the side of the bed full-faced and impish.  Sassy's ready to take his head off as her growls increase. 

Once again, wanting to avoid a fur-flying incident and not desiring to have to listen to the rumble-tumble sounds of two feline siblings fighting, I yell at Piggy to stop it and he drops to the floor and scampers out the door.  Sassy settles back down into a lagunoized pool of serenity.  Her eyes close, the purring ramps up once again and Piggy has gone on to other mischievous adventures.  

Siblings!  Whether human or feline, they always want to create havoc despite the fact that they will get themselves into a pickle. And once again I had to be the referee in order to have peace and quiet. It's going to happen again, I just don't know when.  Hopefully it's not in order to attack me!

Carpet Cuisine

Dinner is over. I have some scraps of chicken and steak left. So, being the nice guy I am I decide to share the scraps with the cats. I drop them in their dish for them to munch on at their leisure. I go about cleaning up the kitchen after dinner.

Within a few seconds, the cats heightened sense of smell quickly draws them to the food bowl like a tractor beam on an alien spacecraft.  Pulled relentlessly to the food bowl, the cats stop, staring at these meaty morsels of goodness.  Their noses waggle as their olfactory meters check out the newest snack.

Seems tasty.  Smells good.  Easy to eat.  All those thoughts race through their minds as their tiny mouths reach for a snack. And then the unbelievable happens.  They pick up the meat, wander away from the food dish, look for some carpet and drop their meat cube there to eat.  As I glance over and see this happen, I quickly retrieve the food and put it back in the dish. I tell them that is not the place to eat their greasy food.  They look at me with questioning eyes, glance at the bowl and back at me and then they pick up the meat and drop it back on the carpet.  Why?!

After another retrieval and placement of the food into the appropriate dish, the cats begrudgingly eat their meat.  They're not the happiest campers, if ever a cat would enjoy camping, but they eat it anyway.  And when they finish there's no "thanks" or acknowledgment of my kindness in their behalf.

So, I begin to wonder. What is it with carpets and food? Do the cats feel that adding carpet fiber to their meal enhances the flavor?  Is this their feline version of seasoning? Do they view it as a giant place-mat? Is it a fuzzy food dish?  I just don't know.  If there were no carpets in the house, would they carry the meat around in their mouths for minutes, hours, days or months searching for that one lone piece of carpeting upon which to lay their food?

It's similar with vomiting.  Why is it that when they get sick or have a hairball that needs expelled they always run to the carpet?  They could be standing on acres of hard flooring and yet if they felt the urge to hurl they'd hold it and run pell-mell as fast as possible to the nearest carpet upon which to discharge their internal refuse.

Cats have their own rules and ways of living.  I wonder what it would be like if I could crawl inside their brain and think like they do and see things the way they see.  I'd probably end up pouring my food on the carpet and eating dinner.