That Darn Cat

Cats are amazing creatures. No other animal can be so loving, self-sufficient and, on the rare occasion, vindictive like a 12-year-old girl. I love my cat, but in the last week, he's pushed me to my limit.

This is a story that starts with confusion, transitions into frustration and anger, moves to motherly guilt, takes a detour to pity, and ends with the realization that my cat, Toga, may be smarter than me.

So here it goes: On Friday afternoon, I was gathering laundry when I noticed that whole pile was wet. It took a quick sniff to figure out that Toga had been relieving himself on the pile for days. Disgusting. I was completely confused because Toga always uses his litterbox. Jon and I checked out the litterbox to see if it was abnormally dirty or something... nope. So, we figured this pee thing was a one-time deal.

On Saturday morning as I was cleaning the house, I started finding pee spots on other random articles of clothing, bags, boxes, you name it. So, now I'm getting frustrated. I immediately start researching why cats mark their territory. While I'm sitting on the floor in the living room, Toga marches up to me for some pet, perches on my lap top case and pees on it immediately. After cursing my little baby and cleaning off the case, now I'm getting mad at him. I'm convinced that he's just decided not to use his litterbox and will spend the rest of his life soiling my lovely home. For the rest of the weekend he slinks up next to Jon and I and pees on something right in front of us.

By Sunday night we're at our wits end. My continued research showed that the cause of this behavior could be medical, which made sense. This behavior was completely out of the ordinary. Of course, on Sunday night I had vivid dreams of me chasing Toga around the house while he peed on everything, but I could never catch him. It's possibly the worst night of sleep I've had in months.

But on Monday morning, after waking up angry and tired, I got a good dose of motherly worry and guilt. Toga marched up to Jon and proceeded to pee on the floor. But this time he was peeing blood. Of course, I immediately took him to the Vet who said he had a really bad urinary infection that can be fatal in male cats.

Clearly I'm the worst cat parent ever. No one should let me have real children. I almost killed my cat by being mad at him when he was only peeing in front of me to tell me he was suffering. I'm an evil wench.

Toga got babied big time on Monday and Tuesday, while we were nursing him back to health. We may have babied him too much, because when I got sucked into an amazingly sappy Lifetime movie about a girl who goes from being homeless to getting into Harvard, and didn't pet him immediately when he wanted, he got the ultimate revenge. It was revenge so harsh that it required human-level intelligence to pull off. Right as the Lifetime movie was about to reach its climax -- when the homeless girl interviews for the New York Times college scholarship that will get her into Harvard -- Toga walks up the TV.

He climbs up on the cable box.

And, before I can say, "Toga, what are you doing?" The cable starts to flicker. I rush the television to shoo him away, but I'm too late. The puddle is there. I run to grab a paper towel, but by the time I get back, the damage is done. The cable is out.

It's still out right now. If you add up the $325 vet bill, the $20 in specialty food, the $40 special water fountain for kitties, and now the replacement fee for the cable box, this little adventure will be quite expensive.

And, I'm convinced, my cat is a genius.