It has been a couple of rough weeks for Missy Kitty, the cat that rules whomever, whatever or whenever she wants.
Or nothing at all.
If Missy Kitty were the kind of cat to point a paw, she would lay the blame for this shaky patch squarely on the two humans who occupy the same house.
You see, Missy Kitty's humans decided, in their crazy wisdom, to move the cat's cheese.
Well, not her cheese exactly. But, yes, her milk bowl, her dish of crunchy dry food and her water bowl all were relocated.
Missy Kitty was not consulted. There was mistake No. 1 right there. Not that it would have made a difference. Still, a cat ought to be consulted before changes -- any changes whatsoever -- are made in her routine.
That's a universal law. Too bad more humans don't get it.
In their defense, Missy Kitty's humans had what they thought were good reasons for taking actions that ultimately put Missy Kitty in a snit.
Let's start with the water bowl and dry food dish.
These had resided in the garage since we moved last summer. There is a pet door giving Missy Kitty around-the-clock access to water and food if she was thirsty or hungry.
A problem with this arrangement quickly became apparent. There are several homeless cats wandering around our neighborhood. Guess what? These feral cats get hungry and thirsty, too.
For a long time, the wild cats would only come into the garage when one of the garage doors was open. That, it turns out, is pretty often, particularly in the summer when the garage turns into a smelting furnace.
So, Missy Kitty's crunchies were disappearing by the bagful, and they were not all going into Missy Kitty's expanding stomach.
But that's not all. The wild cats are as clever as Missy Kitty, and they have learned -- through keen observation, no doubt -- that that pet-door contraption is mighty handy. So the hungry visitors were spending way too much time in our garage.
This led to the decision to move the crunchies and water into the laundry room.
No, it didn't happen just like that.
First we went to one of the local pet stores to check out new feeding dishes and a floor mat for Missy Kitty's dry food and water. Along the way, we decided to move the cat's milk bowl, too. It had always been located next to the refrigerator for obvious reasons. Missy Kitty, naturally, thinks refrigerators exist to keep her milk supply from souring. It's a better arrangement, we all agree, than having a cow in the backyard.
So, we put the cat's new food and water supplies in a decorative arrangement next to the laundry hamper and invited Missy Kitty to behold her new food court.
The first thing she did was put her two front paws in the water bowl and turn it over, covering the hardwood floor with a minor flood.
She did eat some of the dry food. She must have been really hungry. Otherwise she would have gone on a hunger strike just to show us who was really in charge.
And she refused to even acknowledge that milk existed for her dining pleasure.
No milk. No sitting up before the milk bowl was placed on the mat.
What we got was a mad cat running in circles, running from one end of the house to the other, running to jump on the forbidden bed in our bedroom, running to land in her chair and then running to the front door, or the garage door, or the French doors to the back porch and demanding to be let out.
Now!
Meanwhile, a couple of other changes occurred in Missy Kitty's life.
First we bought a new toy for her, a clump of feathers attached to a strong cord tied to a limber pole resembling a fishing rod.
She loves that toy. She will jump and twist and grab and attack until she is completely exhausted. When it's not in use, we keep the toy in a hall closet. When Missy Kitty wants to play, she sits by the closet until we fetch the toy and do our playmate duty.
My wife also spotted a new catnip toy at a store. The toy looks like a cross between a good-sized carrot and a strawberry. Go figure. Missy Kitty played with that toy by herself.
Thank goodness.
When she plays with her catnip toys, Missy Kitty likes to throw them up in the air. Sometimes the toys land on sofas or tabletops. She grabs them and throws them back on the floor. Repeat. And repeat. And etc.
Sometimes the catnip toys go missing. They are caught under a piece of furniture or behind a door. Humans, who are practically worthless in the eyes of a cat, can at least use a yardstick and their opposable thumbs to find cat toys.
Except for the carrot/strawberry contraption.
It is big. It is brightly colored. It is gone.
We know Missy Kitty didn't eat it. It is stuck somewhere we haven't looked, although we have looked everywhere we can think to look.
It's not there.
Slowly, Missy Kitty is giving in to the fact that her food, milk and water are permanently relocated, even though she doesn't have a clue why this happened.
Her humans play with the feather thing at least once a day, which is a good workout for Missy Kitty. And us.
Day by day we inch closer to the new normal in Missy Kitty's life. She's adjusting, and we're adjusting. There is still some boycotting of milk, but that's OK. Missy Kitty's tummy is round enough.
This is what we have all learned:
Humans do stupid things for no apparent good reason, at least not to a smart cat.
And humans will not be relocating Missy Kitty's food and water any time soon. Probably never. Never ever.
In a house with a cat, this is what we call normal.
Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.
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