Cats talk
Common wisdom tells us animals can't talk. Well, that's bunk! I'm here to tell you cats most certainly do talk. They just don't speak English. Why should they? After all, they are cats, the notoriously snobbish, aloof, "I'll come when I want to - or not at all" domesticated creatures with which many of us find ourselves in a love-hate relationship. I happen to love cats. I've almost always had one for a pet - or rather, one has had me, because one rarely "has" a cat. The cat chooses you - or not. You will often see a cat that is very affectionate with one or two family members while avoiding one family member - usually the one who really wants to pet or snuggle it - like the plague. The flip side of that equation is the cat who insists on cozying up to the one person in the family who really dislikes cats. At every possible turn, the cat is near that person - on his lap, in her chair, next to her in bed - to the chagrin of the cat-hater. Cats are something. But I digress.
Cats talk. Case in point. Last night, I went down the hall for some reason that I don't recall. My cat ran ahead of me, quite unusual for her, and stopped at the door to the laundry room where her dry food dish lives. She looked back at me expectantly. Now, my cat does not meow. She sort of murmurs on occasion, but pretty much never lets out a typical "meow". I looked at her and asked her what was up. She meowed. A real, honest-to-goodness cat meow. I knew something was wrong.
I went into the laundry room and she raced to her dish - her very empty, not-even-a-crumb-in-it dish - and meowed. Ahhhh, she's hungry. Usually this dish is kept full so she can pick at it as she pleases. Well, I had run out of dry food so it was empty. I told her I was sorry, that I had no dry food, but that I'd get her a can of tuna if she'd come with me. I turned and walked out of the laundry room. She ran to the door and just stopped. I swear she stomped her foot! I looked back at her and she was just staring - no, glaring - at me. I heard her thinking "WHAT! No food! What is WRONG with you?! I don't want tuna, I want kibble - NOW! How dare you leave this room without filling my dish!" I sheepishly shrugged my shoulders and replied "I'm sorry, Ali, I don't have any and I'm not going to the store until tomorrow." She was mad! I continued walking down the hall. She RAN after me and again stopped and stomped her paws, glaring at me. And she meowed again.
I got a can of tuna from the cupboard, opened it and put it in her wet food dish in the kitchen. Do you think she ran right over to it and started eating? Not on your life. She just stood and stared at me in utter disbelief. I turned off the light, slinked into the bedroom, and got into bed. That was not the end of it. She jumped onto the bed and started nudging me with her head. Bump. Bump. Bump. "Get up. Get me food. Now." Bump. I finally had to push her off the bed. She meowed. I drifted off to sleep, but not for long. A couple of hours later, "plop!" she jumped up onto me and plopped down on my back. It's amazing how heavy a 10 pound cat can make itself when it wants to wake you up. She succeeded. She started nudging me again - and then she licked my face! Not too many things have the startling affect that a cat's rough tongue on your face has in the middle of the night. I was just waiting for the nip to follow. I pushed her off of me, turned over and went back to sleep. She wasn't finished. She kept this up all night long. She'd jump onto the bed, walk onto my side or back, purr, nudge me, lick my face, and I'd push her away. She knew exactly what she was doing. And she succeeded. I barely got 4 hours of sleep last night, thanks to her.
Oh, and the scratching. When I'd push her off the bed, she'd sit next to it and scratch herself. Do you have any idea how loud a cat scratching itself seemingly non-stop is at 1:00 AM? Needless to say, when the alarm went off at 5:00 AM, not only was I nowhere near ready to get up, but you-know-who was sitting within inches of my face staring at me, a Cheshire cat smile on her lips. And she meowed.
This time she did eat the tuna since her routine is that she gets a can of canned food in the morning, but trust me, if I come home without dry food tonight, I'm a goner. I know there will be cat hell to pay. I'm stopping at the store on the way home for one thing and one thing only - cat food. I'm no fool. I don't want to get yelled at by my cat again.
And they say cats can't talk. Psh!
