A Kitten Named "Mischief" Saves My Sanity

My next-door neighbor Vicki gave a little kitten to me for Christmas 2005. Her "official" name is Miss Chiff, or as I call her Mischief. Trust me never has a cat been more aptly named. She has saved my life many times because she came to me as wounded as I was. She was a rescue and spent the first 6 months of her life in a cage somewhere with no love or affection.

When I got her, I couldn't even pet her.

She'd sort of edge up to me like I was being stalked, but then run if I tried to stroke her classic tabby fur. I'm told she was found an orphan, only days old with no mother and as lost and alone as I often feel. We understand each other's pain and have lived in an uneasy truce. She came to me "fixed" only days earlier, and I decided then and there that if she didn't trust me I would have to have her declawed immediately, instead of waiting until later and then having to start all over again to regain it.

They estimated her to be six months old when Vicki got her at the humane society or cat welfare-she didn't say which, so I pegged her birthday at June 1st 2005. She'll turn three this year.

Her favorite spot is on top of my one-hundred-year old 1908 Winter & Company upright grand piano, where she can gaze down regally upon her subjects. She luxuriates on it like a bar room vamp. She also likes to loudly play disjointed songs on it (by pouncing on the keys) when she jumps on her way up or down, or at three in the morning—much to the consternation of my neighbors and I… or when the mood strikes her.

When she was a kitten, everyone would ask how she was in passing, and they collectively bought her zillions of toys anonymously left at my door. The only one she’d play with is an old shoelace from a discarded tennis shoe. The little fur ball would always hide in my house slipper while waiting to pounce, convinced I couldn’t see her. Now that she’s big, she’ll still play with that shoelace and hide her head in that same slipper-still convinced I can’t see her.

I shake my head and wonder about her sometimes.

She won't approach me if I call her; she only comes on her own accord and is happy when I scratch the outer base of her ears but runs away as if in fear if I stroke her back. I know she loves me, even if she doesn't show it, because we have the same wounds. There have been times in the last few years when I just wanted to swallow all my pain and heart pills, but I stopped… who would take care of her?

I have a big three-foot-tall urn-shaped black polished oriental vase in my living room with a gold dragon painted on it. Atop it is a beautiful chess set of miniature statues of Caesar and his legions. I painted the 4-6 inch tall full-figure pieces in all their regalia with gold helmets for the sworded pawns and multi-colored horses rearing back in splendor. The white pieces wore green trimmed with white, the black wore purple trimmed in black.

A few months ago I noticed that the pieces seemed to be moving themselves, sometimes disappearing completely… huh? I figured I'd brushed against them in passing. I’d find them on the carpet and put them back and the next day they’d be askew again. Never tipped over, just moved. I wasn’t even aware she could play chess, but somehow she could stretch up, move them with her paw and manage to never knock the whole thing over.

At the moment she’s kidnapped the black King and I haven’t found him yet. I fear the ransom will probably be high and very costly.

She’s very unconvincing when trying to convey innocence. She also excels at appearing to be bored. She's a master at vengence too.

She has claimed my office chair as her property-I'm just a trespasser to be occasionally tolerated. She won't move to the point of my sitting on her in the dark. I feel for whether she's there now before I sit and she has a bell on her new collar so I know where she is. She gets even with me by spinning the chair around halfway when she leaps out of it in the dark... and I sit... and then fall on the floor.

At the moment she's laying completely stretched out across the right half of the desk; her head close-her feet dangling over the far edge. She always faces away as if ignoring me. Within a few minutes she’ll wriggle and inch towards me, attracted to the clicking of the keyboard or more likely the movement of the mouse cord. Her head inevitably finds my mouse pad at the midway point and she’ll listen to it click as I use the middle scroll button to move up or down a page. Eventually (if she decides I’m not paying enough attention to her) she'll rest her chin on top of the mouse while I'm typing and refuse to move when I blindly reach for it and encounter her instead.

If I gently stroke the soft fur on the top of her head and then the back of her neck, her tail will start flicking angrily. If I keep doing that she'll get up, give me a dirty look and jump off of the desk. If she’s really pissed, she’ll jump back up and lay with her head at the far edge away from me and then repeatedly flick her tail on my hand as it glides the mouse around. When she feels she’s sufficiently aggravated me, she’ll jump down.

A few minutes later, she'll return to start the whole process all over again. The top surface of my desk is hers now too.

She not a spoiled brat and she knows better than to get me too mad at her. She knows her limits.

…After all I’m her “connection.”

I’m the one that regularly gets her high on drugs. I buy catnip and keep it in my desk. If she’s behaved herself, I reward her with a pinch of it, crushing it between my fingers to release the oils. She goes crazy and acts stoned if I put a little of the oil on the tip of her nose. She’ll roll around on her back and squirm. Sometimes I have to keep her from falling off the edge of the desk. She does the same for some hairball remedy that she especially likes the taste of.

I've wandered into the living room on occasion to find her spread-eagle on her back sound asleep.
Often I shake my head and wonder about her sometimes.

She’s also strangely addicted to the flake food I feed my aquarium fish. It’s possible that in a past life, she probably was a fish. When I get into the shower, she always jumps in with me. I’ll give her a puzzled downward look and ask, “Yes?” When I don’t get an answer I’ll shrug and reach for the handle. She scampers out in panic when I turn on the water.

When I exit, she’s always perched on the top of the toilet tank. I’m not sure if that look is anger that I almost got her wet, or amazement that I repeatedly can survive all that water on me.

To paraphrase Paula Poundstone, If I’m relaxing on the bed, sometimes she jumps up and settles at the far edge of the foot of the mattress out of reach. Like Paula's cats, she has a habit if suddenly looking up at the bedroom door for no apparent reason. Unfortunately she has the same look for a moth as she would for an axe murderer, so I’ve learned to ignore it.

I go to bed alone, but usually wake up with her burrowed under the covers and curled up in my armpit. As soon as I wake she'll leap off the bed as if in fear. She breaks my heart-she holds my heart. She purrs when she wants something from me and never when I want or need her to.

We need each other, but neither of us will probably ever admit it.

Two lost souls….

Originally posted by Jet in Columbus Thursday, May 22, 2008
© 2008 by Jet in Columbus