The Starving Writer Blog

My house is filled with dead cats. No, don’t run out and call the ASPCA; they’re not really dead. They only look dead. This is the time of day when they flop down on the nearest available surface, slow their breathing, abandon all hopes of catching and eviscerating stuffed toys, and sleep.

Of course, they look adorable when they sleep. This is what they do, probably a good part of the reason we decided to domesticate them. That and their ability — when awake, which seems to be rarely — to catch small mammals. We have not had a mouse problem ever, and the cats seem to take credit for that. Credit and ransom, actually. They demand their food, demand their treats, and they do so in a loud and insistent manner.

They also seem to believe that we have a great deal of money and that we have provided for them in our wills. How else can you explain their universal propensity to lie down on the floor, either directly in front of us or directly behind us, in the hope that we will trip over them and suffer a fatal injury when we fall to the floor. They assume that our death will benefit them somehow. I remind them from time to time that they don’t even have bank accounts and, even if they did, their lack of opposable thumbs would make it very difficult for them to withdraw funds from said imaginary bank accounts. They don’t pay very much attention to me when I say this, usually greeting the news with a yawn or a half-hearted “mrowr?”

The cat nearest me at the moment, the fluffy kitten, is twitching his ail. He is laying on his side with his arm over the side of his head, and I can only assume that he is dreaming of chasing one of the other cats or he is dreaming of chasing his favorite toy, a red stuffed dog with an impossibly ridiculous grin. I doubt very much that I will ever find out if this is the case, but I like to think that it is. One of the other cats can probably be found in the room next to me, on the day bed. She will have snuggled underneath one of the throw pillows, and she will sleep peacefully there for the next four hours.

The last cat is off somewhere, snoring, and is easy to locate. We only have to follow the sound of his voice. This is actually the good part of the day, the part where we don’t have to worry about tripping over any furry animals, the part where we don’t have to maintain our vigilance over the kitchen table, the part where we don’t have to yell “Hey! Hey! Stop that. I mean it! STOP THAT!” This is the part of the day where we can actually get some work done. If only there were some work to do, that is. It would be a good thing if only there existed some job for a cat sitter like me, or some job for a fairly competent cook who has mastered the art of juggling pans and knives and hot food while gingerly stepping over any number of cats. If only.