Article for Traveling Cat-Owners
Tuesday, 2 February 2010 -- 6:00 pmI’m trying to spread out my myriad of travel posts to once a week, but I’ve been sitting on this article for a while now, so I feel like I really should post it.
It’s clever, well-written, humorous, and even a little helpful, and anyone cat owner who travels can definitely relate! For that matter, anyone who owns a cat can probably relate as well, since cats don’t always need a reason to be a nuisance!
There are a few that I particularly like. “Scoot Scoot Crash” is definitely in Mimsy’s arsenal:
“Scoot scoot crash” is a technical term for your cat’s hobby of delicately pushing everything off the table, the shelf or what-have-you. If it’s not nailed down or bigger than a catbox, expect to find it on the floor.
Rather than saving this for travel revenge, Mimsy prefers to make this statement right in front of us. If we spend too much time playing video games or watching TV, she’ll sit on the coffee table and look at us with that cheeky kitty look before carefully pushing anything she can find off the edge. Coasters, pens, scissors, you name it. This translates to, “I’m bored, and you need to work harder to entertain me.”
I have, however, found that this is often a direct result of her own mischief, in the form of #9:
9. Making his toys disappear.
Your cat may punish you by being an ungrateful sourpuss, achieved by hiding all his cat toys in those new hiding places. “Where’s that freaking mousie?!” may come out of your exasperated, travel-weary and cuteness-starved mouth. Thwart him: Sorry, you can’t. If the cat hides his own toys, they are under the couch or lost to the universe. Somewhere, there is a dimension filled with cat toys of yore. It’s physics.
Giving her the benefit of the doubt, I’ll chalk Mimsy’s proficiency at this up to poor eyesight and toy-catching furniture. The number of jingle balls and catnip socks that find their way under the cabinets and sofa is astounding! But I’m pretty sure there are some that are lost in that alternate dimension (along with odd socks and my original copy of Catch-22).
However, despite her general naughtiness, Mimsy is surprisingly good when we travel. It’s Maia (at least I think it was Maia) that chose to punish us (well, mostly me) for our absence. And she didn’t bother with anything as subtle as chewing houseplants or shredding toilet paper. Instead, she waited until we got home and our luggage was sitting in the hall waiting to be put away. Then she peed on my soft-sided suitcase. After endless scrubbing and dosing it with every de-odorizing product on the market, parts of that bag still smelled. Luckily the bag was nearing the end of its lifespan anyway, and after a few more trips I finally had the chance to replace it last year. Now I’m careful never to leave suitcases lying flat and to keep them in the bedroom whenever possible!