Yours, Mine and...Theirs

In our house, the rule is to never leave a soft-drink cup with a straw sitting on the floor or on any low-to-the-ground surface.  Not that we drink a lot of soft-drinks in our house, but on the rare instance that we do, we make sure to put the drink high enough that Reggie cannot climb up to it.  If we don't, we will come back five minutes later and find that our straw has mysteriously disappeared, only to find it a month later under the couch, still with little dried droplets of Dr. Pepper on it.  That's because Reggie cannot resist any long, stick-like object, and will appropriate any such object for his own.  Lately, we've had to be careful coming in and out of the house, because we made the mistake a few times of letting Reggie go find his own "toys" out on the front porch.  Now he thinks that whenever the door opens, it's time to go shopping at "Sticks R Us" outside.  


Reggie also likes playing with the commercially available feather toys that are attached to a stick.  He likes it when you play with him (making him run around in tight little circles is his favorite way to play that game), but he's just as happy to play by himself as well.  If you leave a feather toy out, Reggie will find it, and all you will hear is the scrape, scrape, scrape, pop! sound as Reggie puts the feather part in his mouth and slides the stick across the floor until it hits a wall and bounces back.  (Hey, it's the best you can do when you don't have opposable thumbs!)


But Reggie's not the only one in the house with a fetish for filching things.  Wanda absolutely adores makeup brushes.  On occasion, when I've lost one behind a piece of furniture, Wanda will find it, take the fluffy part in her mouth, and fling it over her head towards her back end, then turn around and chase it down before it hits the ground.  She loves those things.  


One time, I was putting on my makeup in the bathroom with my makeup case open on a lower ledge.  Otto came in to investigate, noticed the makeup brushes within easy reach, then went trotting off to another room.  I heard him vocalize to Wanda for a second, and then they both came trotting back into the room, side by side, heading straight for the brushes.  (I am not making this up.)  Otto apparently told Wanda that the brushes were sitting there, and were easy pickings.  That's the only explanation that makes any sense.  At least in our house.


Food is fair game as well.  Reggie once helped himself to the dregs of an empty salad bowl which we had stepped away from momentarily.  This would make sense if we'd been eating the salad with bleu cheese or Ranch dressing.  We'd been eating salad with balsamic vinaigrette, but Reggie didn't seem to mind.  Wanda goes nuts for yogurt.  If you have plain yogurt, it's expected that you leave the container on the ground for her, so she can stick her whole head in the cup and lick up the last few smudges.  Elroy is interested in anything at all with any fat content on our plates, but usually backs off when he realizes it didn't used to be alive.  (Let's face it, as vegetarians, there's not a heck of a lot our cats would find appealing on our plates.)

But, in our family, we're all about "share and share alike."  Wanda's even nice enough to bring her sparkly fluffy ball toys to bed, so we can all have the joy of sleeping on top of them...thanks, Wanda!