Top Ten Reasons the Three Rotten Cats Drive Me Insane

If you’ve been here before, you know that I (a self-proclaimed cat-hater) have the distinct pleasure of living with Three Rotten Cats.  These bad boys make it their life’s work to find ways to annoy me.  This is a fun game for them.

It is not a fun game for me.

This week, in honor of their summertime well-kitty checkups, I have collected my top ten favorite reasons why the Three Rotten Cats drive me insane.

1. They holler at the top of their unbelievably loud tiny little cat lungs for breakfast.  They do this early and they do this often.  They will continue until someone gets out of bed and feeds them.  Of course, they are entitled to eat.  But no one needs to eat at 4:50 in the morning, particularly when there is still food left in the bowl from last night’s dinner. Go away.

2. They steal my seat any time I vacate a chair.  They refuse to move when asked politely to return the seat.  This refusal usually results in a Rotten Cat Dumping.  They do not enjoy this game.  I do.

3. They do weird things with their water bowls.  The Rotten Cats have two water dishes in our master bathroom.  Why?  Cat One refuses to drink water from the kitchen bowl.  He insists upon fresh, clean, bathroom-only water.  If the bowls are empty, he will bang them together until they are filled.  Cat Two will only drink with his paws, scooping up tiny little drinks and leaving cat paw residue behind.  Cat Two also drops food pellets into the water.  We don’t know why.  He never fishes them out – just leaves them there to get bloated and water-logged.  Cat Two then refuses to drink the befouled kitchen water and heads for the bathroom where Cat One proceeds to bang the bowls together for a refill.

4. They are freakishly good at hide and seek.

5. They think they are artistic.  Cat Three writes poetry with those Magnetic Poetry refrigerator magnets.  It’s better than mine, I think.  Cat Two poses for Christmas card photos.  Judging from my driver’s license photo, he is more photogenic than I am. Cat One is practicing to audition for a snake in an upcoming Indie film, “Cats Who Think They Are Snakes.”  He stretches out on the floor with all four limbs tucked underneath him so he looks, well, sort of snake-ish.  His agent would not allow photos, however.  They will probably all end up with successful careers and out-earn me.  This makes me not like them.

6. They often show up in random places in the house at the same time.  This is disturbing.  Last night before bed, I turned off the hall light outside our bedroom and all three of them were sitting on the top step together in precisely the same position, looking up at me.  (Tried to get a photo, but one of them ran off.  Camera shy.)  When I came out of the bathroom this morning, all three of them were sitting there right outside the door.  Staring at me.  In the same position.  This brings me to the next item.

7. They insist on following me to the bathroom.  As soon as I close the door, Cat Two arrives and peeps at me from outside the door until I let him in.  He rolls around on the floor for about thirty seconds, purring, then peeps and stares longingly at the doorknob until I let him out.  At precisely the same time, Cat Three enters, performs the same routine, then stretches himself up to full height, and attempts to open the door until I let him out.  Then – you guessed it – Cat One enters and does the same thing.  They also believe it is their duty to supervise Kidzilla’s bathroom activities.  This is probably not a bad idea, however, considering that every Mom knows that when children are left to their own devices in a bathroom with running water and a full roll of toilet paper, bad things happen.

8. They do not clean bathrooms.  They just parade around in the tub and on top of the toilets and counters.  In fact, they don’t clean anything.  Lazy little loafers.

9. They have a weird container fetish.  If there is an empty box or bag anywhere in the vicinity, one of them hops in.  They usually just sit there meowing until someone notices that there is a cat in a box or a bag and comes to praise him for his efforts in this regard.  There was a time, however, when entry into a shopping bag resulted in disaster…Cat Three got himself into a bag head first and somehow got the handle over his head.  He moved.  The bag moved.  He freaked out.  A lot.  For about the next three minutes, Cat Three ran as though being chased by a demon.  He ran everywhere…including straight up a wall.  He is fine and no permanent damage resulted.  Now that I think about it, though, Cat Three’s poetry writing did commence not long after this event, so maybe there’s a connection.

10. They are championship sleepers.  Seriously.  If sleeping were an Olympic event, My Boys would have gold medals around their Rotten Little Necks.  Most often, they sleep on top of things that I am trying to use so that I cannot use them or they choose precisely the chair that I would like to sit in.  They do this on purpose.

And finally, a bonus Rotten Cat Magic Trick: They refuse to tell the truth about which one of them did Something Rotten.  Amazingly, each of the Rotten Cats can make himself look or sound like either of the other two at will, successfully confusing the Humans.  Whenever one of the Humans in the house asks which Rotten Cat did something, the answer is always “the black one.”  Somehow this is always a funny joke, despite its ridiculousness.

Enjoy your yearly visit with the V-E-T this week, Rotten Cats!  XOXOXO

Update: Twenty-four hours later, Cats One and Three of the Rotten Cats are in post-vet mode.  They are sulking and sleeping.  Cat One is (literally) licking his wounds from his vaccination shots.  Poor Rotten Boys.  Cat Two, however, blatantly refused to go so now we need a separate visit just for him.  Fantastic.  He has now earned the title of Most Obnoxious Rotten Cat.