It’s a tradition. Before games, the Chem dept. blows up something symbolic of the other team.

[snarp]

^ TV! I have lived mainly in places without TVs for about six years, so I’m frequently startled by the stuff that’s on there when I’m home.

My 15-year-old cat has been creating obstacles to foot traffic forcefully and with great conviction in many inappropriate places. The vet put her on a special prescription diet, which has thus far only caused her to space out her intestinal comments a little bit. I don’t think this is entirely due to a lack of bladder control, because she seems to be particularly interested in modifying the surface texture of bathmats, towels temporarily serving as bathmats due to actual bathmats all being in the washer, and a long carpet remnant we put in the hall.

What is her objection to movable floor covering? Is this what she has been trying to communicate with the campaign of plaintive meowing she began around her thirteenth birthday? Have we ignored her arguments for so long that she has chosen this politically-charged moment to take her movement to the streets? Maybe I should have said “movements” in that sentence, but it seemed forced. I have seriously been sitting here Googling phrases like “pants for cats.”

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)

Comments

[loligo]

OMG, I feel your pain. We cannot leave any sort of soft material on our floor, at all. No bath mats, unless they are actively being stepped on post-shower. No laundry. No coats that fall off the coat hook. Oddly enough, whichever cat is at fault seems to ignore area rugs....

(I say "whichever" because we have seven -- three indoor-only, four indoor-outdoor. Why we have so many is a long story, but it boils down to too many people around here can't be bothered to spay/neuter their pets, and I can't bear to take strays to the shelter when I know 80% of them will be put down. So we keep all the weird/antisocial ones that we can't find homes for.)

Anyway, last year one of my cats got cancer, and she started peeing in inappropriate places, but she was very obvious about it. Then she passed away, and we had a few months respite from pee stains (long live enzyme-based cleaners!), and then it started up again, and we never catch the culprit in action. It's getting to the point where I might buy a motion-activated camera and put it down in front of a nice clean bathmat. Because I suspect the peeing may just be part of a struggle for dominance (the deceased cat ruled the roost, and now there's a power vacuum), but I worry that someone's got an undiagnosed health problem.

I had to laugh at the cat cafe post, because that's what my house looks like at night when the outdoor cats come in: grumpy cats lounging everywhere. (The outdoor cats, who are all related to each other, have been with us for two years, and they are *finally* learning to enjoy being petted.)

[snarp]

Oh, I was *seriously* considering the camera idea myself before we caught her in the act. We've got five cats and three dogs, four of whom are over 10 years old, so it's frustrating identifying the culprits of these crimes.

Our house is the same - a lot of cats sitting in high places glaring down at you.