My Caretaker

I woke up this morning, feeling like an extra in "Night of the Living Dead: The morning After" and stumbled to the shower. Forty-five minutes later, I'm drying off, and the door swings open. Sitting in the doorway, with a pathetic "feed me, I'm starving, you asshole" expression on her face is my cat. She squeaks a light meow at me and runs to her food dish, purrs at it, then runs back. I feed her; she stares at her bowl for a second, and then shoots me a "you're kidding, right?" Look. I say "shut up" and she starts eating, contented that I do, in fact, love her. So it goes every morning.

In the evening, I come home, walk in the door, and she is sitting on the sofa looking like an axe murderer just walked in and found her. She has the look of a terrified defendant who KNOWS he's getting the death penalty, and she runs into the study, hiding, well in sight, in a corner. This isn't the first time she's been neurotic like this. I made the blunder of buying her one of those mechanical litter boxes. Oh my GOD! What a nightmare! She goes in it for the first time, and ten minutes later the rake cleans the litter. She heard the noise, gave it the most indignant look I've ever seen from man OR beast, SMACKS the box a couple times, then slinks off looking dejected. It got so bad she'd eventually sit in the box for hours just to keep it from going off (this was before she learned how to open doors, so she couldn't come in the bathroom and watch ME go, yet).

Now her vice is rubbing her face on everything. EVERYTHING!!! I'm sitting on my bed reading, she takes the opportunity to scratch her face with the dust cover, unless it's supper time, then she starts chewing on the pages. I open the curtains, and she tries futilely to rub her cheek on them. That's why my boyfriend and I changed her name. She was named Famón when I got her, now we call her Mrs. Whatzit. That's who she reminds us of, this quirky little bag woman who appears out of nowhere and does weird things in "A Wrinkle in Time". She take good care of me though, making sure I'm up on time (to feed her), ensuring I get enough exercise (chasing her to her food dish), and even making me get enough sleep (by sitting on my bed in strategic places so I can't get up without disturbulating her). So caring, and understanding.