Big Pimpin': Or How To Be Abused By Your Cat

First, you start by bringing home a hyper 10-week old puppy, a speedy 12-pounder who does not understand the two tenets by which the cat lives his life:  “dignity” and “body-buffer zone”.  This puppy is not at all like your old dog, who would pretend that the cats were not there.  Cat is astonished to find himself considered a plaything.

The cat’s favorite lounging spots immediately become part of the puppy’s super-highway.  As the cat growls and punches the puppy in the face repeatedly, you imagine the cat’s surprise when the puppy becomes 5 times the cat’s own considerable size.

The cat does seem interested in the puppy and her antics, though, and you once even find the cat batting around the puppy’s squeaky duck, although he looks very embarrassed when he notices you noticing him squeaking it.  Realize you will pay for seeing this.

Begin to think that all is now well between cat and puppy, for the most part.  Slip into a false sense of complacency.  Go to sleep happy.  This is where the chaos begins.

Part One:  Big Pimpin’

You have been sleeping about an hour, puppy curled in a comma by your side, little cat on the pillow, when you are awakened by the blaring noise of:

We doin' big pimpin, we spendin' cheese (Check 'em out now )
Big pimpin'
On B.L.A.P.'s
We doin' big pimpin' up in NYC….

Or at least the cat equivalent of such.  You realize that cat has decided to voice his complaints about the new state of affairs in your household by wilding at 1:00 a.m.

Write it down in your little book of hurts, you tell the cat, but with a sinking feeling you know it is going to be a long night.

The Big Pimpin’s continue as the Cat figuratively marches around the bedroom with a boom box on his shoulder, playing loud music with the volume up as high as it can go.  He jumps heavily on the bed and makes a lot of noise.  He is listing all yours and the puppy’s crimes in outline form.  It is a series of whirrs and chirps and plaintive syllables. 

If R2D2 had a cat, you think, this is how he would meow.

On the one hand you feel badly that the cat is upset, but on the other hand... SHUT UP.

Part Two:  The Cannonball

When you don’t give the cat the response he feels he deserves, whatever that may be, he decides to up the ante by incorporating The Deep Windowsill into his theatrics.  This windowsill is about two feet deep and a good three feet above your bed.

When cat prepares to jump from the bed to the sill by wiggling his butt, groan loudly.  Roll over several times quickly, trying not to wake the puppy, who would then need to go out to do her business; you are hoping to find the best way to lie so that you won’t get hurt when 14 pounds of cat hurtles from the windowsill towards your soft parts.  Know that your attempts are futile.

Cat first tries to tear down the curtains and the shade.  When this does not work, he reverts to his original plan, the cannonball.  If you had your glasses on and could see in the dark, what you would see for an instant is the horrible sight of a cat in the shape of a bowling ball, one front paw wrapped around his uptucked hind legs, the other paw plugging his nose to make sure no water gets in.

The Cat Cannonball lands a lead balloon on your stomach.  You sink lower, while the puppy and little cat are flung about six inches off of the mattress.  The cat prepares to do it all over again, Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

You finally get annoyed enough to stand up on the bed and remove the cat from the sill.  Just as you are about to fling him aside angrily, cat guilt-trips you by erupting into loud purrs when you pick him up.  You put him down gently. 

Cat 2, You 0.

Part Three:  The Crunching

The cat feels appeased and is ready for a kind of détente.  Best not to accept your surrender on a half-empty stomach though, so cat heads towards food station to fortify himself. 

The cat begins his snack of dry kibble. Although he is in the kitchen by this point, his chewing is so loud it sounds like the kibble is in your own mouth and being broken into bits by your own teeth.  You lie in bed and wonder how he does this.  Is it a trick of ventriloquism or megaphone?  Either way CRUNCH…you know CRUNCH…that the puppy CRUNCH is about to hear the CRUNCH noise.  How could she not? 

The puppy raises her head.  She contemplates what the cat is doing and what she, the puppy, is not doing:  eating kibble.  Hmmmm.  You can see the injustice of this beginning to register on the puppy’s face.  It is at this point that the cat decides to let some kibble spill from his mouth and rocket loudly across the floor.  The puppy looks at you; she looks towards the door.  The puppy lies back down with a sigh.  Good girl, Puppy!

You feel very affectionate towards the once-again sleeping puppy.  You pat little cat, who has remained unperturbed on the pillow.  And then you move your legs into an unnatural and cramped position, making way for cat to curl up in his favorite spot.  Cat purrs.

Cat, In Happier Times: