THIS CAT DOESN'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK

[spatch]

DEAR GYPSIES

This is a bill of sale for one (1) domestic longhaired feline, colors black and white, 18 pounds in weight, addressed by the name of Abbie, answers to nothing.

Please take great care in storing this feline as he will go absolutely fucking apeshit in the middle of the night, jump on you while you sleep, and CLAW OUT YOUR MOTHERFUCKING EYEBROW in an attempt to jump to the windowsill.

Holy shit. Ever been awakened from a sound sleep -- REM sleep, I might add -- by a cat jumping on your head and clawing you above your eye? Ever had to wash blood out of your eyebrow? Ever realized that had he been an inch or two lower, the claw would've gone right through your goddamned eyelid and into your eyeball JESUS H CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TRYING TO DO, BLIND ME? MAKE ME GO ALL SAMMY DAVIS JR WITH A GODDAMNED GLASS EYE? OH IIIIIII'VE GOT TO BE MEEEEEEEEEE NO! NO! A MILLION TIMES NO, YOU CURSED BASTARD SPAWN OF A MOTHER AND SON! I SPIT AT YOU! I HISS AT YOU! I MIGHT AS WELL BE DANCING AROUND IN A GODDAMNED CHICKEN SUIT AT YOU FOR ALL THE GOOD IT'D DO.

Hey, kids! How many obscenities can you spot in the previous paragraph? Go on, try it! It's fun! Next week: Learn to draw with Karen Finley!

I have honestly never wanted to really hurt him before. Sure, there are times when one can joke about Ironic Cat Demise, or say "You pull another stunt like that and you'll be floating head-over-tail in the Charles" but I swear tonight, after I leapt out of bed, adrenalin and blood flowing together, and I felt the gore pooling above my eye (there's a real nice solid stabbing pain going on, enough to warrant some advil, definitely not like a simple scratch at all) my first reaction was to try and deliver a good fucking solid kick to his side. Oh, it's not like he didn't know any better, leaping on me like that. I am reasonably sure a cat has the ability to understand and avoid "sleeping human form" because he sure as hell can understand and avoid "awake and pissed-off human form with foot rapidly advancing." He didn't get kicked. He was already in mid-run to the other room anyway.

What really upsets me, other than the fact that the claw came perilously close to my left eye, is that I have no way of punishing him. I really don't. And for some reason, tonight, I really want to. He really needs to learn a lesson. I'm almost afraid to go back to sleep if he keeps up his game of running back and forth in the middle of the night. Shutting him in the other room only keeps him out of my hair for so long, and then he gets upset and starts scratching the door. I'm reasonably sure the neighbors can hear that. Ditto putting him in a cat carrier -- he'd only keep me awake by rattling his cage. The closest way I could show how upset I am was, when I was dabbing my eyebrow with wet toilet paper (what a night to realize you're out of band-aids) I purposefully avoided all his attempts to rub up against my ankles in contrition or whatever. I said "No" a lot and moved around a lot. You're not getting any contact made with me, cat. Then I shut the bathroom door. I can't wait to see how it scars up tomorrow. I was s'posed to be on TV and everything. We'll see what happens.

Now he's taken over the spot on the bed I was sleeping in a scant 10 minutes ago. He doesn't know what he does. He's just a cat. He blithely runs pell-mell through life without any care for the consequences. And I think that's what pisses me off the most.

Comments

[muffyjo]

:( Not a fun way to wake up at all. Maybe it's time to move the bed away from the window?

[subbes]

Sleep in protective goggles, silly.

YOU HAVE TO GIVE UP THINGS IN ORDER TO HAVE KITTIES.

[spatch]

I don't have goggles but instead I invented a CAT PROOF HAT okay

[subbes]

Why not wrap your head in chickenwire, or wear a football helmet?

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

Hey, think we could sell those?

Bob's dad has a barn, and Sue's mom has a sewing machine! Come on kids, let's put on a hat factory!

Seriously, how is your eye now? Did you have any antiseptic for it? (Handy hint: saline makes a good emergency antiseptic.)

[platys.livejournal.com]

I would so knit you that hat. :)

[fourcoffees.livejournal.com]

So this is what a CAT scan does.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Is he really the spawn of a mother and son?

(I'm just axin')

[spatch]

Yes, he is inbred.

[spatch]

...which explains a lot, really

Solution:

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

Soft-side cat carrier, one of those ones that looks like a tote bag with screen doors.

Maybe eventually he'd yowl, but he ain't rattlin' nothin'.

[karyn.livejournal.com]

DECLAW :)

[cheezdanish.livejournal.com]

No no no. No declawing Abbie. He's already batshit insane, cutting off his fingers wouldn't help a damn thing.

[moxie-fawn.livejournal.com]

Yeah nothing like making a cat feel defenseless do they overcompensate in other ways.

Plus, yeah, removal of the fingertips? Crew-elle.

[karyn.livejournal.com]

oh give me a break. he was talking about wanting to kick his cat and punish him. it was a tongue-in-cheek comment.

a kitty with no claws couldn't puncture his eyelid.

[semer.livejournal.com]

Of course, it would probably find other ways to kill you for the horrible thing you done. :P

[fourcoffees.livejournal.com]

But not compared to the rage it'd muster when outfitted with tiny pink cat socks.

[josh-giesbrecht.livejournal.com]

Unless the kitty likes to bite!

We trim our new kitten's claws, but she's a nibbler so it only helps marginally. She drew blood from the neighbor below us when he tried to pick her up after she jumped off of our second-story balcony.

We also keep her out of the bedroom. She stays quiet through the night, unless she hears one of us get up for a drink or something.

[katre50.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, that sucks. There are many many days when I wake up at 4 to the cat's yowling that I start to ask myself if I know anyone who wants a spare cat. I keep a squirt bottle that I use, although it's hard to have that handy at 4 am when you're bleeding.

[annilita.livejournal.com]

That's it! Install motion-sensing misters around your bed!

[duchez.livejournal.com]

See the two of you actually like cats. I don't. And I still have to deal with a psychotic cat clawing up my back and neck.

At least he doesn't do it when I am asleep because I banned him from the bedroom. His banging his head against the door every morning is irritating, though.

There was a thing I saw at the vet once, it's like gel-press-on-nails for cats that you put on their claws instead of declawing them and it prevents them from scratching. Is that an option?

I still say get rid of the cat, but hey.

[piemancer]

Hey, man. You probably had an evil spirit that only cats can see sitting on your head. Abbie was protecting you from something you can't even perceive because he loves you, man.

*offers to neosporin up yer eyebrow*

[dcart.livejournal.com]

I had something similar happen to me a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't sleeping, though. I was sitting in a chair. One of my cats was on the top of the back of the chair. Something startled him and he came running down my head. I had a pretty deep little cut just below my eyebrow, but just above my eyelid.

[platys.livejournal.com]

I had Streeter (who lives in Alabama now) jump up on my head one night. My hand was up above my head, and I freaked, and he freaked, and totally tore a massive gash in my thumb, right by the thumbnail. Damn, that hurt. But, yeah, you can't punish them. You can only cry and tell them they are bad and refuse to pet them for awhile.

[invisibelle.livejournal.com]

My boyfriend got a gash in his eyebrow when he was but a wee one, and the hair has never grown back. Just a thought. :)

[pecosy.livejournal.com]

Ooooooh, cool scars! If you get a cool eyebrow scar then you will need a cool eyebrow scar story that does not involve cats.

[invisibelle.livejournal.com]

Hee, I was thinking the same thing... you don't want the story to be "my cat jumped off my face."

The "I was 5 years old and ran into a fence" story is pretty endearing.

[spatch]

I was trying to work out a real macho story to explain the scar.

"So, there I was, running with the bulls in Pamplona, and I couldn't take the Hells Angels harassing that poor waitress any longer, so I jumped off my Harley, unsheathed my Hattori Hanzo sword, and went all samurai on them. As the last one lay dying he pulled out a knife from his boot and threw it at me."

"Wow. Then what happened?"

"...then a cat jumped on my head."


Needs work.

[ketzie.livejournal.com]

He blithely runs pell-mell through life without any care for the consequences.

Reason number 32,487 why I would prefer to be a cat.

[granuaile.livejournal.com]

I feel ya, spatch. Not too long after bringing in one of our cats from Straydom, he once randomly thought it would be fun to ATTACK MY FACE! This is a bit different, true, because my cat actually WAS intent on harming me (who knows, maybe my nose was threatening him...) but anywho, heal up and take a deep breath.

Ever consider getting his claws capped?

[katre50.livejournal.com]

Does that actually work? I saw a brochure for it and it seemed very dubious.

[moxie-fawn.livejournal.com]

A girlfriend of mine got her cat's claws capped with those rubber tip thingys. She was very happy with them.

Plus, you get to make fun of your cat who then runs around with brightly coloured toes.

[semer.livejournal.com]

Yes, claw caps are a humane and effective alternative to declawing (which is cruel and evil and SO WRONG and NEVER DO IT!)

[minkrose]

My family's first cat actually DID scratch my sister's eyeball, when she (my sister) was five years old. Ariel (the cat) hooked her claw into Maddy's eye below her iris, in the white part. We had to take her to the doctor an' everything. Maddy's fine but what a terrible experience for a child.
I suppose my point is that one CAN survive a cat-claw to the eyeball, if it comes to that. It's just very unlikely that one would actually get to retain the eye.

and people wonder why I dont want pets.

[daisyglaze.livejournal.com]

I have a nice perma-scar on my lip from a Spike-claw, cuz I tried to pick him up while the vacuum cleaner was runnin'. Here's hoping you get a cool scar for chicks to dig.

We no longer let the cats in the bedroom at all. Yeah, they scratch at the door, but that's preferrable to being clawed in the eyebrow, or awakened from the sleep of the dead to a cat jumping on your stomach on his way down from the windowsill.

[annilita.livejournal.com]

This might be your only recourse:

http://vip.mikrobitti.fi/~tapiob/whitelines.gif

[hyperina.livejournal.com]

what the

[rosalux.livejournal.com]

For a long time, whenever the cat walked on my head/tits/gut early in the morning, I locked him in the bathroom or the stairwell.

It's sort of stretching it to say he *learned*, but he's better these days.
You could do it until the neighbors complain, at least.

Or you can sleep with a pillow over your face and one over your nads & belly.

and hey

[rosalux.livejournal.com]

if he did that to another cat probably the cat would pin him down and kick the crap out of him. So you know, you can't do that because you're 10 times his size, but *wanting* to is totally OK.

Re: and hey

[spatch]

I usually sleep on my side with my head between two pillows, but I guess I push the top one off in the middle of the night when it gets too hot.

And I've pinned him down before when he's gotten too wild. He stays still for a bit, and then begins to cry. Heartstrings duly tugged, I let him go. Bastard.

[hyperina.livejournal.com]

One day after i jumped out of the shower, my beloved cat decided to use my back as a spring board to get from the floor to a higher level, and i crumbled immediately to the ground yelling OWOW OW! and I rolled around in pain and she could probably even smell the blood, because now she still does that but she always retracts her claws, first. Painless, now. It only took once rotten incident like that for her to learn. So maybe Abbie won't ever do it again, either. And if he's too dumb to have learned, well, stupidity is not a crime, eh. Maybe you could sleep with one of those soft sleep masks, the padded ones with lots of cotton velvet, not the little nylon ones that make your brows sweaty.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

I checked Abbie's blog, and find no mention of this incident. I think you're telling stories to get sympathy.

[spatch]

He's lost his computer privileges for a week.

[josh-giesbrecht.livejournal.com]

As if he even remembers the incident as something noteworthy.

[thufir-hawat.livejournal.com]

Your last paragraph is exactly why I dislike cats so much. I can't deal with entities that have no idea what they just did a few moments ago (or act like they don't give a shit, people might debate this with me about the cats, but it's exactly the same thing in practice). Makes me nervous, at best.

I still wouldn't have kicked it. But. Hate 'em? Yep ;)

Keith

[(Anonymous)]

The answer is obvious; little tap shoes. Then you can hear him coming.

two related stories

[josh-giesbrecht.livejournal.com]

Now I must relate. Twice.

Story Number One:
In my teens, my bedroom was in the basement and had an unfinished ceiling. Being a dorky teenage slob, I didn't mind - hey, I could hang stuff from the beams. However, this meant that if the cat felt like coming in my bedroom and I was so rude as to close the door, she would hop up onto the freezer in the next room, jump up between the beams onto the bedroom wall, and then down onto my bed. Normally, this worked out fine as she'd usually aim for the flat area beside me, or occasionally my stomach ("OOOF brzt silly cat *snoresnore*").

However, one day she slipped on the way down, and the claws came out. One landed on my chest, left a nice little mark for while. The other landed directly between the eyes, a nice diagonal slash on the bridge of my nose.

Now, to everyone telling stories about how their cat scratched them one time when they were playing, or when she was snarky, and ha ha I know what it's like - you have no freaking idea what it's like. Waking up from a dead sleep to PAIN ON YOUR FACE is basically turning on your KILL CAT NOW switch. I loved that cat, she was awesome and I cringe at the thought of hurting animals. But the only reason she didn't die that night, or get seriously wounded at the very least, is that she's really damn good at hiding.


Story Number Two:

Earlier in life, before that bedroom of mine was built there, there was an unifinished drywall wall between an open 'rec' area and the laundry room (with the aforementioned freezer). Said wall had a hole in it (from some anonymous incident with us rowdy kids in said rec area). (Okay, enough 'said'.) One day, I heard guests at the door while folding laundry, so I peeked through the hole to see if they had come down the stairs.

The cat was sitting on a couch on the other side of that hole, and saw movement.

Let me tell you, having your eye scratched is a pain like no other. I got a small scratch on only the white of my eye, on just the very outside layer, but at the time it hurt SO BLOODY FREAKING MUCH. I mean, I was a nice reasonably upstanding young man, and family guests were chatting at the front door with my clean, wholesome parents. But at that moment, there was nothing to do but hold my eye, wish I wasn't immobilized by pain so that I could throw the cat across the yard, and say F*CK repeatedly with just a bit too much volume.

I'm told that it would've hurt a full magnitude more if the scratch had gone any deeper, or (God forbid) had been on the lens of the eye. I can't even think about that, it doesn't compute.