Cat diet

Stinky and I are still waging the battle of the bulge. He is not in the least concerned that his extra girth puddles on the floor around his haunches when he sits. I am. His extra weight has made him a bull in a china shop. He can’t go airborne as he once could so instead of jumping over things, he crashes into them. I am constantly picking up the pieces after him.

So, we’re back to The Diet. And he is back to calculating which protest activities will drive me the craziest. He is now, bar none, the best trash picker in three states. There is not a trash can that he can’t overturn. If there is nothing tasty in one of them, at least he has made his point. I spend a lot of time picking up trash.

Now he has determined that the one thing that sends me right around the bend is standing beside me pawing repeatedly at whatever is closest—the wall, a door, my chair, a book, a stack of papers. It doesn’t matter, as long as it makes noise.

Enter the squirt bottle. He hates that thing. All I have to do is show it to him and he runs. He deviously hides around a corner and paws the wall or whatever else he thinks I’ll hear, but where I can’t see him. Or squirt him.

I am almost ready to concede defeat.

Last night he sat on my bed, by my head. And he pawed my pillow. Over and over and over and over. I pushed him off the bed. He jumped back up. I pushed him off. He jumped back up. I grabbed him and chucked him out the door. He sat outside the bedroom door and pawed the door. Then he threw himself at the door. I scooped him up and put him in the basement. He sat at the head of the stairs and howled at the top of his lungs. He has a lot of lung power.

I fed him. He ate like a hoover, washed his face, and went to sleep.

And now, six hours later, he’s starting all over again. Which of us do you think is going to win this contest of wills?

Probably not I.