Kitty Gold

Okay,
the measure of a child is how expensive the gift is vs how much fun they will have punishing their parents by only playing with the box.

The measure of a cat is what she won't eat, but make sport with it's garbage. My cat does not like milk.

My wife, Roxz, had informed me (in the cat's first month in our home) that they sell little plastic rings like those that hold your cap on your milk jug as cat toys. You know, those little flexible plastic rings with the little teeth on them, that keep your milk 'safe' from prying fingers (or at least warn you if some errant 5 year old has drunk from the jug on the store's shelf). I called her a liar. She then took the next little ring off the jug, and tossed it at the cat. It occupied her for an hour, till she lost it under the stove the 4th time and I wouldn't get it out.
KITTY GOLD!

Fast forward to a year later...and about 500 lost little rings of plastic in an old apartment and new home (note:if you leave them under your stove, where the cat deposits them, they WILL breed. neuter your trash).
I am in the dining room, after watching 'Kill Bill part I' with the spouse...debating on watching part II...writing about the 'Mouse Wars', when a whirlwind roars by.

A flurry of fur, fangs and destruction.

A fan is capsized, a note is sucked off the table next to me into the vortex, and I nearly lose a toe.
Imagine, if you will, the Tasmanian devil from Looney Tunes.

The path of destruction moves into the kitchen.
It bounces off the cabinets under the sink, ricochets off the fridge and piles into the secretary. It stops for a moment, image of a cat frozen in mortal combat with something menacing...rises up into the air majestically to pounce once again...and sounds of a tornado start back up.

Under the kitchen table...
around the base, knocking Rox's purse off the chair it hangs on...
back out toward the dining room (I pull my foot under the computer desk quickly)..

She collides with the small rug at the foot of the sink (she managed to miss it when she bounced off the cabinet...I am STILL trying to figure out how).
She tangles. It is an abrupt halt. It is a halt with little dignity, and limbs pointed everywhere. Nothing is more humiliating to a cat than splayed limbs that do NOT involve bathing and exhibitionist impulses. She manages to get her head out of the mess, and glare up and at me.
I get up and start digging, looking for whatever moth may have gotten in, and whether it is mauled or able to be rescued...and I find a small blue plastic ring with many little teeth marks.
I hold this up, shake it at my wife (who is giggling to beat the band) and say, "I blame you...oh I blame you"...

While I am doing this, the cat disentangles herself, and bites my toe...causing me to drop the kitty-gold.

The whirlwind resumes.

I shall not sleep tonight.




(anybody got a good recipe for cat?)