Thinking Outside the Box

I just recently gave notice at my place of business to accept a new position.  I'm really excited about my new opportunity, but I'm also really going to miss a lot of the people I work with.  One of my co-workers, whom I recently just got to know because of our mutual love of cats, was nice enough to bring me a napkin with a New Yorker cartoon on it that had a guy standing above a cat, who was next to the cat's litter box.  The caption read:  "Never, ever, think outside the box."  I was touched by the gesture, but also amused, because when you live with six cats, you realize that they're never, ever going to take this piece of advice seriously.


My house is never sparkling clean.  Or hardly ever, anyway.  That's because, with a household full of felines, a lot of valuable house-cleaning time gets taken up by cleaning up after them instead.  Several of them have nervous tummies.  Mango scaredy-scats pretty frequently, and several of the males like to let the rest of the world know that they own this corner...or this window...or this couch.  Yuck.  So, consequently, we're often on "seek and destroy" missions for cat urine, or dodging the gems Mango leaves us when she gets scared out of the litter box, mid-poop.  I know living in a house full of six cats must seem exotic and glamorous to some (ha!), but it has its down-side too.  There are litter boxes and hair balls, and just plain old run-of-the-mill vomit.  That old adage about dogs having owners and cats having servants really could not be more true in our case.


Mister has a particularly operatic way of alerting us if he's getting ready to launch.  When Mister eats something that he finds doesn't agree with him (usually a piece of plant he has snacked on), he begins what could only be described as something half-way  between a caterwaul and an aria.  If you can imagine someone saying "owWOWwowwowwowow...owWOWwowwow..." with a truly breathtaking range of notes and crescendo, you can almost get a sense of what this is like.  The first time I heard it, it terrified me.  Then, after a few times, I realized that this was just Mister, announcing to the world that his food had rebelled at the possibility of digestion and was beating a fast retreat.  I consider it a kind of "early warning system" for getting him off comforters and couches and things that will be difficult to spot-treat. 


I think we hit an all-time personal low this week, though, when Otto (bless his heart) tried some kibble early in the morning that turned out to be a little too rich for him.  In response, he came back to bed, crawled under the covers with Sean, got between his legs (as per usual) and promptly yakked all over him.  The Otto model, of course, does not come equipped with an Early Warning System, so at first, Sean was just puzzled by the warm, wet sensation between his legs and on his shorts.  Then, when he woke up enough to realize what had happened, he got out of bed, trailing pieces of half-digested kibble out the sides of his underwear.  If that's not the most humbling thing that's happened to him in a while, I'd be surprised.  Luckily, I was in the shower and missed most of the excitement.  


We immediately switched back to the old food, and Otto was fine.  There's a certain amount of sweetness there, that he would look to Sean to provide comfort when his tummy wasn't feeling well.  It's sweetness we hope not to...ahem...bring back up for a while though.