Be A Dr. Doolittle

Okay, people, I can tell by your overwhelming response that the majority of you are not yet lining up at your local tattoo parlor to get some new ink while your mates are deployed. (Keith, I’m glad you’re interested in getting a new one, too. Let me know if you need me to come along to entertain you. I’m willing to travel!) So, I’ll just have to come up with some brand new advice that more of you might be willing to try. Let’s see…

Ah! My next gambit to encourage sanity sans spousal units… How 'bout chatting with your kids while your other half (in some cases I would say, ‘better half,’ but not in every case!) is gone? They are entertaining, inject some levity into the household, and only hack up hairballs twice a year: the first six months and the second six months. Oh, you thought I meant real, two-legged kids? Well, for those of you that have them, yes, by all means, chat with them, but for those of you with four-legged kids, you, too, can interact verbally with your pets. (Fair warning: people tend to look askance at you if you ‘borrow’ their kid for a chat. It’s usually best to ask first and even better if you know them!) For those of you with both types of kidlets, I think you’ll find from the following transcripts that the conversations can be eerily similar.

The Directive Conversations: Those of you with two-year-old children may recognize yourselves in my chats with my cats over the last few weeks.

The Mama: Spit that out! -- Usually well after something noxious has been ingested and just prior to seeing it again on the floor, slightly chewed.

Lucky: Uuurrrrppp!
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The Mama: Get your head out of there! It’s going to get stuck! – Always AFTER the stuckee is raising holy hell about being stuck in the cabinet, the drawer, the chair rungs, etc. Augh! CATS!

Lucky: Duh! Mama, that would have been great advice about thirty seconds ago. I mean…MWROWR!
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The Mama: Get off your sister! -- That one tends to cause the neighbors to peer cautiously in the windows.

Zoe: ROOOOWWWWWWR!

Neekie: What??!! I’m not doing anything!
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The Mama: Very funny. Scoot over! It’s the mama’s bed! Can’t I have a little room? – I had no idea that three cats could take up more room than my husband. Ah! That actually makes me miss him more…he’s easier to scootch. My cats engage gravity and sink completely into the mattress, not to be ootched, scootched, or shoved. I’ve heard that two-year-olds have the same innate talent.

Lucky, Neekie, Zoe: Nuh-uh! ZZZZZzzzzzz!
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Zoe: Get up, get up, get up! Feeeeeeeeeeeed meeeeeeeeeee! – All of this at about o’dark thirty every morning, or as I lovingly refer to it, the butt-crack of dawn. I swear she has a watch that she sets every night, just to crank me off.

The Mama: Shhhhhhh! Mama’s sleeping. I know there’s food in your dish. Get out of the bedroom! – I’ve been told it comes out more like, “nnuuuuhhhhnnnn…out!”

Zoe: Not anymore!!!! :->
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Wow! See how all of this can keep loneliness at bay! Chatting with kids and pets can be fun! Besides, people will think you’ve gone batshit crazy if you talk to yourself, so just yak at your kids or your cats/dogs, no one will even notice. As if on cue, as I write this, Zoe, the 22 pound gray hassock of a cat has just gotten on top of the fridge (for a hefty girl, she’s got better ‘ups’ than Neekie) and crawled into Lucky’s hidey-hole. He loves it because we store the grocery sacks in it, so it’s full of “crinklies.” She’s waiting in ambush. She just asked me not to tell him. And, since he’s usually the aggressor, I’ll let her jump him. Should be hilarious! I’ll see if I can get a photo of the hi-jinks to follow. Without too much of my own blood spilled, of course.

Ah, well, be sure to let me know how your own dialogues go. I’ve read a couple that Ashley and Leah posted and they do, indeed, seem eerily similar to the cat chats here at Kitty-Cat Central. And, lest you all think that I cease these pet tete-a-tetes when the hubby is around, just ask him. He usually has to check to see with whom I’m conversing. He’s lucky, if I’m yelling, it’s usually not him. I miss you, Baby, I’d like my bed back!