Pets

Opinion/Editorial/Life

Cat Tax Day

Ramen Junkie 0Comment

I’m all off this week thanks to screwy work and an extra post and just a general chaotic time. So I’m going to do a bit of a filler day and fulfill the “Cat Tax” for Blaugust. Against my better wants, we have 7 cats. We have the space and the people, but personally, 7 is too many. Also, they don’t always get along. At the moment, two of them we have to keep separate at all times, which is a pain, shuffling them between which is locked up in a room and which is not. If we don’t they will literally just, fiercely deathmatch, instantly.

I’ll go from oldest to youngest.

Scarlette (#10)

I’m going to throw some numbers on these, Scarlette is the tenth cat I have had in my lifetime.

Scarlette doesn’t really have any other nicknames. She is the oldest at around 13 years now I think. Like all of our cats, we got her as a kitten. She was actually a replacement cat, from the vet. We had adopted a calico kitten that the kids were calling Uganda. When it came time, we set it to be fixed at the vet, and the poor kitten didn’t make it. The Kids were of course devastated. Shortly afterward, the vet (who was sort of a friend of the family because our kids were friends) called up and they had another kitten that needed a home, so we adopted Scarlette. She had come from a “cat hoarding” situation I think, and she was extremely skittish. To the point of, we lost her in the house at one point for days.

Later we discovered that she had been hiding inside the boxed springs of the bed. For at least the first year she would regularly just, vanish into the boxed springs.

My family commonly refers to her as “My Girlfriend” (as in me personally) because I am definitely her favorite of everyone in the house and when I go to bed, I don’t care where she is, she will come running in to join me in the bed. I’ve also worked with her to get her to be less skittish and more cuddly. Even after years with us, she would cower in fear anytime you tried to pet her, despite that she may have just been trying to get your attention for pets. I have no idea what happened to her in the brief time before we adopted her, but it had to have been pretty horrible.

Simba (#11)

The next three are actually all from the same litter, so I’m not positive of the age difference, though whatever it is, it’s minutes. We sometimes call them “the Triplets”. Simba doesn’t have any nicknames aside from maybe “Jackass”, because he is kind of a bully sometimes.

Simba’s fun story. At our old house, eh loved to go outside and hunt birds and rabbits. We tried to keep them from going out, but that didn’t really work out sometimes. When we last moved, during the move, he got outside. He is, notoriously hard to catch. In the end, we left him behind, with plans to come back for him. Over the course of a month or two, we would periodically drive the 45b minutes (one way) drive down to the old house and see if we could see him. It was mildly irritating because he would come to the door of our old house, but the new owners refused to let him in. All they needed to do was let him in and give us a call, we would have been there and taken him away.

Eventually, our old neighbor called us up. He had managed to catch Simba in a Raccoon trap and he was recovered. Now he has zero interest in going outside ever.

His absolute favorite thing is when I refill the cat food container and he can come and eat the super fresh out of the bag food directly from the source. I like to let him indulge in that since it only happens maybe once a month.

Kiara (#12)

The girl of the triplets, sometimes called Dobby or the “Basement Troll”. Kiara likes me, and is pretty agreeable with people, but she hates all of the other cats except maybe Kovu, and especially after the move, she claimed the basement as her domain and hides down there all the time.

Kiara is our smallest cat. She likes to hide in the most random and strangest places.

Kovu (#13)

Kovu is the largest cat we own, though pure weight-wise, Simba is very close, though Simba is pretty lean and is basically all muscle. Kovu is sometimes called “Fatty”, which I’ll admit is a bit rude. He likes to think he’s not fat though and often climbs up all over the place and jumps between furniture, chasing people down to get petted. He’ll let you know too, because he’ll squawk at you and reach out for it.

He’s probably the overall best-behaved cat. He generally doesn’t get in fights with anyone else and he doesn’t cause any problems. His worst offense is being too pushy sometimes about getting attention, which is made worse because he is a fat ass and will knock things around getting to you.

Jackie (#14)

Jackie is my wife and I’s baby, though don’t tell her, Scarlette is probably my real favorite. Jackie came from my father-in-law’s shop as a kitten and we basically brought her home expecting her to die. which she did not. Originally she had one eye stuck closed so we called her “One-Eyed Jack”.

She is extremely spoiled and thinks she is my wife and I’s favorite and gets pissy and jealous anytime the other cats get attention.

Lettie Bug (#15)

My daughter’s cat officially, though Lettie prefers my wife over everyone. Also known as Lettie, Buggers, and (from me) Boogers. Boogers because she is an absolute bitch to me, at all times. Seriously, fuck this cat. She will attack me anytime I come near her, for no reason.

She is part Maine Coon and quite fluffy. She mostly avoids the other cats but only really actively attacks Kiara or Wilbur, sometimes.

Wilbur (#16)

Wilbur is the youngest cat. Sometimes I call him Kovu’s Boyfriend, because they get along well. Also sometimes, “YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE”. He’s an ok cat but he’s also a dick to all of the other cats. He also pisses on things, a lot. He’s a little jack-ass. He likes to be in the middle of whatever you’re doing but doesn’t really like attention. If it were up to me, I would seriously consider rehoming Wilbur, because he is a bit over-aggressive towards the other cats and he’s damaged a lot of things, including our old TV. It’s not up to me though.

He’s a good cat, he just, could be better. I am hoping as our older cats start to “age out” for a sterile way to phrase that, he will get better. He could literally BE the favorite if he would stop pissing on things (yes, we had him checked at the vet, he is just an asshole).