Dear Cat

Dear Cat,
Mittens. Sweet, adorable, fuzzy feline terrorist. Mittens.

We need to talk, and now is as good a time as any with you laying on my head while I am trying to type. As a side note, there's no way you can be comfortable and you can't breathe lying like that with your butt higher up than your head...but your brain is the size of a pecan so I guess I will forgive you for this minor indescretion.

While we're talking about this, what is up with your choice of sleeping locations? I am, of course, referring to your various dalliances with my underwear drawer. I know, in my heart of hearts, that it is my responsibility to keep the drawer closed...But getting ready for work at 5am with only three cups of coffee in my system means that sometimes, I forget. Please do not mistake my memory lapses as blanket permission for you to roll around and have a seven-hour bath in the 70% cotten lair of my unmentionables. No one should have to use a lint roller on their underpants. I'm just sayin'.

And, speaking of bathing, you are clearly misguided in your multi-hour attempts at cleanliness. Your ass stinks. I mean REALLY stinks. I am spending more than a fair portion of my hard-earned wages to feed you over-priced gourmet cat food. And, sure, I occasionally feed you a bite of cheese, or a few rice crispies, or maybe an entire corndog, but seriously. Why do you smell soooo horrible? I thought cats were clean. There are seven of your brethren living under this roof. None of them smell like they have a half-dead possum rotting in their digestive tract. Why, God, did you give me the stinkiest cat in this solar system?

Furthermore, while pontificating about your nether regions, Cat, why do you insist on showing me your ass? I do not enjoy this. Especially when I am eating. Or, you know, breathing. I find this particularly annoying considering you have been blessed with a fabulous appendage known as a tail. I understand this is a multi-funtional part of your anatomy, but for the love of everything good and holy, have some modesty. Also, when you sit on my head, please have the kindness to put your aforementioned incredibly useless tail down. I don't want to catch something.

The litterbox. I have to wonder, is it your goal to defecate on the rim of the box? Is this a passive aggresive method of informing me that, despite your access to the great outdoors and my daily maintenance of your sandpit, your are discontent with the level of cleanliness? If it is, Mission accomplished! You can stop now. You have proved your point. It is not funny anymore, and I have run out of stick-like devices in my house to clean it off with. The box is big enough, and you are small, so don't even go there.

Now... making pointless, incessant, and maddening noises. If I take something away from you because I am tired of hearing it scoot across the floor for the last 2 hours, it does not mean to go find something else to mess with. I realize I started this trend when, as a charming kitten, I provided you with approxmiately 743 plastic army men to play with. At the time, it was cute. It was not so cute, however, stepping on said army men at 3am in bare feet on the bathroom floor. I couldn't take it anymore. I'm sorry I took away the army men; I'm sure it was traumatizing. But hear this, cat: bottle caps, paper clips, pens, lighters, egg shells, coins, shards of broken glass, flatware, my eyeglasses, and the remote control are not appropriate substitutes. I mean really where do you find this stuff? A wad of paper? Is that really that fun to play with?

Carrying on with the theme of "my stuff", I put things on the coffee table because I want them there. At the end of an exceedingly long day, the first thing I do is take my contacts out. As you and I both know, due to the many times I've stepped on your previously mentioned idiotic tail, I am completely blind. When you hide my glasses, it hurts my head. I do not want you to knock EVERYTHING off of the coffee table in one of your mindless "tearing ass through the house for no reason" adventures every single day. I need to be able to see, man. Once in a while, it is amusing. Every day, it's not that funny.

Lastly, I am allergic to you. I know this isn't your fault, but knowing this, why do you insist on rubbing the whole length of your body on my face? And why do you feel the need to bathe my pillow as if it were one your young? You haven't even had young. And, yeah, I know. I had you neutered. Talk about indignity. But, seriously? It's pretty clear you were not meant to be anyone's mother. Please try to find it in your feline heart to forgive me. Sometimes, when I'm feeling guilty about denying you your natural right to procreate, I think about how I rescued you from the SPCA. Yeah, that's right. I win.

Okay... I just pulled a CAT HAIR out of my eye. No wonder my eyes are itchy if you are purposefully depositing your dander into my eyes. What are you trying to prove here? It's bad enough you take away my vision aids (and my toothpaste. What the hell?), why must you endeavor to make me blind, itchy, and full of snot? Did you not catch the part about me saving your stinky, terrorist ass? I just don't get you, cat.

While you're busy carrying things about the house in your mouth to deposit them into some area that I haven't discovered yet and eating food off of my dinner plate, would you mind bringing me a peice of sandpaper to me so that I can alleviate the itching you've caused me? And maybe you can rustle up my glasses from whatever den of inequity you've hidden them in. Oh, and while we're on this subject, I need my hair ties back - I know you have them. Thanks.