Teeny tiny paw prints across a beige suede sofa. Suspicious bumps under an otherwise perfectly dressed bed.The horrendous sound of little claws using furniture upholstery as scratching posts. Rheumy runny eyes and incessant sneezing. All signs that you are now sharing your domain with little felines.
I have recently been cat-sitting for some friends of mine who are on the holiday of a lifetime. I relished the chance to have a house all to myself. I thought we would be like ships passing in the night, just feed them, put them out, take them in, as per their Mammies instruction. How very wrong I was. When I arrived to the house the first day they were nowhere to be found. I had been informed that they were in fact in the house, so it was just a matter of finding out where. I knew there would have to be a little interaction, I did not however envisage a game of hide and seek, with me at a very unfair disadvantage. After being through each of the rooms I threw in the towel and decided to watch some television. I would make another effort to find them later.
In the sitting room I proceeded to sit on the couch whereupon I heard an unmerciful hissing. The game was up, I had unearthed feline number one!! Nestled between two very large cushions, lounging peacefully until I arrived was Leroy. I always knew there would be a hairy start with Leroy as he is the more independent of the two. He doesn't like to be mollycoddled and I most certainly did myself no favour by nearly sitting on him. Leroy carries himself a little like the world has done him a disservice. If he were a human I have visions of him being a cop (not a garda now, a cop). One of those cops who deep down is a real decent, by the book kinda cop but likes the world to think of him as a brooding, dark, son-of-a-bitch type. The type who secretly likes to be looked after, but will throw the lady in his life a curve ball by showing up late for that special meal she cooked, or pretending he doesn't realise she dressed up especially for him. He was to be my challenge for the week, he wasn't going to go out of his way to make my life easy, I was after all a guest in HIS house.
So we shared the sofa, Leroy and I, him perched on one side, me on the other. The evening passed with absolutely no sign of feline number two. In the end I decided I would have to go and look for her. Having been informed that she is the laziest cat on the planet, I started with the bedrooms. On closer inspection I spotted what looked like a disturbance in the smooth surface of the duvet, so I prodded, thinking that if she were there I would get a reaction. ....Nothing. So I prodded again and.....nothing. I lifted the corner of the duvet to find feline number two. Foxy was curled into a tight little ball, sound asleep. If I'm honest it was hard to tell her head from her tail so I just gave her a proper nudge and she moaned at me as if I were the worst person in the world. I eventually managed to rouse her enough to get her downstairs. If Foxy were to appear to me in human form she would be a lady of leisure. A kept woman with no desire to strain herself or trouble herself with the trials and tribulations of the outside world. She would be the kind of woman to marry for love, but it would just so happen that she loved a guy with buckets of money. She is a fickle creature who loves attention in all shapes and forms. She has a figure of a lady who has been spoiled a little while too long. She's a little less than graceful, but nevertheless you find yourself warming to her despite her shortcomings.
Being a dog person I had no concept of what to expect from cats.
What I learned!!
1. I am a little more than slightly allergic to the little feckers. I was in hot pursuit of the anti-histamines after Day 1.
2. The noises cats make when they eat are beyond adorable. You can almost hear how small their little mouths are by the tiny bites they take.
3.They are incredibly affectionate, both to each other and to whoever may be looking after them.
4. They like their own personal space (Leroy) , unless they feel at any particular moment like sticking their exceptionally rotund booty in someones face (Foxy).
5. They drool. Something I did not know, and absolutely did not expect. When super content and purring happily, Leroy began dribbling little beads of drool on my shoulder, and proceeded to drape his little paw right across my face.....Typical man! :)
6.They are stealthy little beggars. In fact they're like little ninjas. Unlike dogs, careening down hallways, rebounding off furniture whenever they hear the cracking of the fridge door, or the rustling of a wrapper, cats just appear, as if from nowhere. Its a little creepy.
7. Cats don't miaow!! The noise they make sounds a little more like they are saying the word "now". Its an unusual sound, distinctive, which usually seems to occur when you have been cheeky enough to put your own needs before theirs. Or uncannily, it can be heard at the sitting room window, seconds after you have made yourself comfortable on the sofa.
At the end of the day I still am and probably always will be much more of a dog person, but these two have given me food for thought about possibly having a cat as a pet someday. I would even go so far as to say I missed their little faces around for the last few days.
