Everybody knows about my personal zoo of distinctly unique animals. Especially my cats. Maevie, the little one-eyed princess, is currently asleep on a bright pink velour hoodie on my closet floor. She took up house in the closet when Spencer moved in and took over the dining room. Spencer is my fifteen-pound ball of pain-in-the-ass. A dog stuck in a cat's body. So affectionate you trip over him as you move through the house, because he can't stand to be away from you for one minute. Right now he's asleep with his cheek against my knee. In the middle of the night I'll wake up and he'll be sleeping fetal position next to me, with his head on my arm, or he'll be sitting right above my head. He loves humans.
When Maevie moved in, I quickly figured out that I couldn't let her into the living-room when I found claw marks on the legs of my precious leather couch. Princess Maevie to the core, the regular cat-scratcher wasn't good enough for her delicate nails. This situation was easily fixed. I created a faux-gate with some wire mesh from Target. You know, the kind that you build dorm-room bookshelves with? Anyhow, she looked at the gate, looked at me, and the message was clear. Living-room off-limits. Got it boss. Even now, when I'm in my little office-enclave, if she wanders in thinking I'm not around, all it takes is one look from me and she turns tail and heads the other way.
Spencer, however, is a different story. His goal is not the leather couch, but the yummy plants in the living-room. But he's only curious about the living-room when I'm in there. Because he always needs to be in the same room with me. At first he would just shove the bottom of the gate forward until he could fit his body through. I footed the gate with a large book. The he shoved the other side open. I footed that with a heavy bookend. By that point, it was not only difficult for the cat to get in, but difficult for a human as well. Spencer then figured out how to clear the gate by leaping from the floor to the back of the couch. So I built the gate higher. No good. He would just back up and re-calculate his leap, even when I put a vacuum-cleaner in front of the gate. At first his leaps are messy, much like an amateur pole-vaulter when one raises the bar, but after a couple of tries the leaps are easy and the cat is winning Olympic medals.
One day, while doing dishes, I hear what sounds like horses galloping. Then a large clash and clang of metal against wood. Spencer the Undeterred had started at one end of the apartment, charged the length of the hallway, and slid into the gate full-force, thereby breaking it to pieces.
This house don't suffer no fools.
Now I find myself researching the purchase of AN EXTRA TALL BABY-GATE, because I have a fifteen-pound cat, who thinks it's a dog, and therefore acts like a toddler. Why do I put up with it? Because for the past half-hour he's been lying next to me, his head pressed against my leg, not moving when I move, only content to be where I am. Because when we went to the shelter, he climbed into my messenger bag head-first and just stayed there, upside-down. Because in the middle of the night he'll step across my throat and nearly asphyxiate me, but only because he wants to lay next to me. He's like Lenny in Of Mice and Men. An extra-large, oafish cat who destroys things, but only because of his inability to control his love.
P.S. He also likes to sneak up on Maevie when she's in the litter box. I don't think that's out of love.
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