About Cats Who Do Messy Things In Inappropriate Places [A Rant]

This is Raisin, our nearly 13 year old beloved cat.

Raisin was the smallest of a large litter of kittens born in our niece's tack barn, offspring of a stray purebred Siamese and an itinerant tom-cat.

Raisin has always been beset by what our vet called a "delicate digestive system."

To put it more plainly, it is a rare day when she doesn't barf at least once.

Raisin has tiny little cat bones and is waif-ish in spite of having been presented with every possible variety of cat food, including pricey gourmet kibbles and dainty tidbits in small tins.

She prefers morsels of steak [with sauce] begged from J.'s plate or a spoonful of ground beef which he has warmed in the microwave.  When offered the tinned treat dished out to the other cats, she is inclined to rear back from her saucer in horror at the mediocrity of the entree.  On occasion she will condescend to lap at a dollop of strained chicken meant for human babies.

In defense of Raisin it needs to be noted that she usually announces an incipient bout of vomiting with a loud and mournful "Wah, wah, wah---merow, ow, ERP."

If we are in attendence the mess can be deflected from a rug, the edge of a cushion or chair. When taken by this affliction in the small hours of the night she is usually considerate enough to leap down from the bed.

This saves the quilt, but presents a hazard when one unwittingly walks across the bedroom in the dark.

Lately our daughter and son-in-law's two small dogs are often in the house.

The cats have on the whole accepted this--not with pleasure, but with huffy resignation.

Raisin has been spending hours in the middle of our big bed rather than napping in her favorite livingroom rocker.

This forenoon, daughter G. headed into our bedroom to view herself in the big mirror.

"Eeeeuuuugh!" she yelped. "Mom, there's a pile of cat puke on your bed!"

The bed was, of course, empty of felines. Raisin, who had been there moments before was sitting in the hallway.  Sitting there gulping.

I have a streaming head cold and have felt rather sorry for myself since last evening.

The prospect of stripping the bed set me on a rant.

J. summoned by my stuffy wails, declared that ,"Nobody SAW Raisin do it, so she probably didn't do it!"

[Is it obvious where his sympathies lie?]

G. and I snatched off the quilt, the light-weight blanket, the top sheet. The offending stuff had soaked through to the bottom sheet and all the bedding needed to be laundered.

I plodded downstairs to the laundry with the hastily wiped up quilt, G. followed with the bundled sheets.

Later I pegged the clean quilt on the line to whip in the breeze, staunching my drippy nose with one of J.'s handkerchiefs as I bent over the laundry basket.

G. pegged out sheets and pillowcases, helped me spread clean linens over the immense bed.

Raisin has now taken up her spot on the fresh bedspread--flanked by Charlie and his daughter Jemima--all on my side of the bed.

It is a good thing that we adore our cats.

[Wah, wah, snuffle, sneeze!]