Dena Harris: Lessons in Stalking

The phone rings. It’s my yoga instructor.

“I was wondering if you wanted to sign up for our next series of classes,” she said. “You were making such good progress.”

I think about the physical anguish, and sweat, of the yoga class. Then I ponder the money spent to experience this pain. I tell the instructor I will not be returning to class.

If it’s pain I’m after, I can get that at home for free.

I’ll just do yoga with my cat.

I am engaged in a battle of will against my cat. The upsetting part is that I’m losing.

Here’s the scenario. While batting her food around one day (because apparently we can’t eat it until first we’ve stalked it), the cat accidentally swatted a kibble into her water dish. That was good for about three minutes of fun as she sprayed water all over the kitchen floor in an attempt to remove the food. When she tired of seeing me on my hands and knees with a towel, she finally used her paw to scoop the food out of the dish and onto her mat. Then she ate it.

Of course “she ate it” is an understatement. Could she speak, the cat would say the skies opened and the heavens sang. We don’t feed our cats moist food because I don’t want to deal with half-used cans of smelly cat food in my fridge.

(They might overpower the odor of the half-used cans of smelly human food we keep in there). But having discovered the joys of moistened food, there was no going back.

In fact, the cat liked the wet food so much, she now refuses to eat her food until we pour it into her water bowl, let it soak for about 20 seconds, and then dump it…where?

Back into the food dish? Oh no, too easy.

No, the watery mess must be poured onto the food mat, in the exact place where she first discovered the delightful delicacy of kitty-chow con aqua.

If we pour it back in the dish, she won’t eat it. If she doesn’t see us dump the food in the water (I tried to save time and just wet the food at the sink), she won’t eat it. Her Highness is very particular. And though I try to resist, I can’t stand to see her not eat so I give in.

This isn’t the first time I’ve caved. Early on, the cat insisted on stalking her food. This wouldn’t have been so bad if she were an outdoor or barn cat with an ample supply of field mice and squirrels to keep her busy. What made the situation awkward is that she is an indoor cat, and the food she was stalking was IAMS ®Indoor Cat Formula at almost fifteen dollars per two-pound bag.

She refused to eat the food unless we threw it across the floor, allowing her the opportunity to leap and pounce before savagely ripping the kibble to pieces. Sometimes she’d bat the kibbles across the floor and chase them. Other times, she’d run and hide beneath a kitchen chair, tail flinching to and fro, planning the moment of her attack.

My husband has no patience for this sort of behavior. If I dare complain that I am tired of throwing food across the 41 floor or staring at wet cat chow on the mat, I am harassed with, “Well, what do you expect? You baby her way too much.

If you just leave the food in the dish she’ll eventually get hungry and eat it.”

And he has a point. I mean, what’s wrong with me that I bend so easily to the will of a fifteen-pound cat?

The answer is simple. I do it because she’s cute. And she purrs really loud when I dump the food in the water, and even louder when she sees me scoop it onto the mat.

Seriously, how many chances in life do you get to make someone that happy?

When I point this out my husband just stares at me.

“You’re nuts,” is the only counterargument I receive. From this I conclude I have won our war of verbal sparring. In triumph, I toss the cat a kibble across the floor.

Still, I admit I’d like to be able to just pour the cat food in the bowl and move on with life. My husband insists he can help me wean the cat toward accepting our feeding rules; those being that the cat food goes in the bowl, dry, and stays there. Needless to say, the cat is not pleased with these new rules, which she vocalizes loudly.

“Mrow?” (Translation: What’s going on? Why is the food in my dish?)

“Mrow? Rowr? Mrow?” (Hello? Anyone? Hello?)

“Mrow? Rowr, meow. Mo-ow??” (Lady, get it in gear. I don’t eat out of a dish. Re-mem-ber??)

Receiving no response she resorts to bad language.

“ROWR-FSST?!?”

At this I throw a pleading glance at my husband. He doesn’t even look up from his paper. “Ignore it,” he says, turning the page.

I do ignore it. At least until he leaves the house. The cat and I both watch him pull his car down the drive. She looks at me.

“Wait for it,” I say. My husband honks his horn goodbye.

The cat looks at me again, ears perked. I give her the nod. “Yup, we’re clear,” I say. “Let’s go for it.”

And so I spend the next ten minutes feeding a deliriously happy cat a combination of wet cat food and hallway dust bunnies. The dust bunnies are an unintentional side effect of eating off the hardwood floors. My cleaning needs some work.

But I’m not going to dust my floors just for a cat.

I have to take a stand somewhere.

The cat has discovered a love of pasta. She prefers Mueller’s ®pasta shells, uncooked, of the medium-sized variety.

I inadvertently began her love affair with pasta by reaching into the kitchen cabinet for some soup. My elbow bumped an open box and dry pasta shells went scattering and bouncing across the tile floor.

I started, the cat jumped, and then we looked across the room at one another. Our eyes narrowed to slits. We both knew exactly what the other wanted. Without a word we went racing in opposite directions—me for the broom, the cat directly for the pile of shells.

It was no contest. By the time I arrived with the broom, she was in the middle of what appeared to be a free-for-all hockey shoot-out where, instead of a black puck, the cat was lobbing Mueller’s ®shells. She went down the line like a professional, nailing shot after shot.

ZAP! There went one into the dining room.

ZING! There went one under the stove (Add it to the list of things she’s batted under there never to be retrieved).

POW! She was bouncing them off the fridge. She turned towards me, armed and ready, and I knew I must regain control.

“Hold it!” I command. “These are not toys! This is food your father and I require for our daily survival.” I dangle one of her pom-pom balls in front of me. “Here, sweetie. Do you want to play with this?”

BAM! The cat wings a shell past my left ear.

That’s it. No more Mrs. Nice Guy. I scoop up a yowling cat and deposit her in the bathroom, door closed. I go back and sweep up all the pasta now scattered throughout the house that I can find. It’s really hard to reach the ones that went all the way under the couch.

Once finished, I let a very miffed cat out of her cell. She sniffs the floor where the pasta had been and turns toward me. I watch her consider her options. She decides to play the cuteness card.

Perfectly round eyes of innocence follow my every move. I was just having fun. Is that so wrong? After all, I never even get to leave the house.

I cross my arms over my chest. Seeing I am not to be moved, she heaves a theatrical sigh, drops her tail, and meanders away.

Later that afternoon, I start giggling. She did look pretty cute, happily whapping the beejeezus out of those shells.