RevSpork

Introducing Felix

Meet Felix. 

It's been two months since we adopted him, but I wanted to make sure he was a permanent member of the cast before introducing him to my mass audience.  So far he hasn't gone Charlie Sheen on us, so he's staying.

Tori's photo of him was taken just one week after we adopted him, and he's gotten a lot bigger since then.  But he's still in Kitten Mode, closing in on six months of age.

After Mimi died in November, we weren't keen on replacing her so soon.  We needed time to grieve, to let go.  But Jack, our psychotabby, became a lot less psycho. After nearly a week of looking everywhere for Mimi - checking the linen closet, under the bed, and sniffing for any fresh sign of our late calico (which broke Tori's and my hearts even more) - he settled into a listless funk.  Although he still played with us, it was obvious he felt lost and alone, probably for the first time since we adopted him.  Mimi and Jack never got along, but Mimi was feline company, and Jack isn't and never will be a lone cat.  Tori and I had discussed this even while Mimi was battling cancer, and we suspected Jack would suffer, but not as bad as he did.  Within two weeks after we lost Mimi, we knew we'd have to get Jack some feline company before the end of the year.

Over the next couple of weeks, Tori couldn't stop looking at potential kittens on shelter web sites.  I think it was her way of dealing with her grief.  I sometimes joined in, but I had Mimi on my mind too much.

We knew we'd get a kitten.  Jack loves to play, and he was forever frustrated with Mimi's refusal to do so.  Jack is four years old, still young and energetic enough to deal with a kitten.  We also wanted a kitten so that Jack would be the alpha dude, the Man in Charge.  We didn't want to get an adult who might have ideas of his own. 

On the morning of my birthday, 15 December (mark your calendars!), we took the train to PAWS. the same place where we adopted Jack and Mimi three and a half years before.  It was hard; we were both against adopting another calico (out of love for Mimi, and because we didn't want another series of cat battles on our hands), and yet the shelter boasted several your calicos (including two calico kittens, who were heartbreakingly cute.)

While hanging out with the kittens (I recommend doing this at least twice a week for optimum mental health benefits), one little tuxedo kitten kept Tori distracted.  He was up for playing with her, and he was well-versed in emotional manipulation, charming my wife to no end.  I picked the little bugger up myself; first he started gnawing on my cell phone (while attempting to take a photo of him), then, as I stared him right in the eyes, he playfully bit my nose.  Sold.  (Jack also introduced himself to me years back by biting me.  Little shits.)

So now Felix (named by PAWS; Tori refused to consider another name, believing it fit our tuxedo perfectly) is here.  He's snoozing on the computer desk next to me.  And he just belted out two monstrous kitten yawns, which means he's ready to get up and wreak havoc on the household.  I'll write more about him at a later time, but I need to get to bed before Felix decides it's playtime. 

Damn.   Too late.

One last post about Mimi

Tori picked up Mimi's ashes last night.  We hadn't asked for an urn (Tori wanted to make her own), so we received her ashes in what looks like a very small plastic garbage can.  We don't hold it against the crematorium, but really, a coffee can would have been more comforting. We also received a certificate of private cremation, as well as a clay disc with Mimi's pawprint on it.  It's only been a week, but I feel like I shouldn't tear up when I see a little plastic bag of Mimi inside the plastic container, but I can't help it.  Damn, it still hurts. 

To make myself feel better, and to offer myself a little closure, I'd like to share with you all a few things I loved about Mimi.  Maybe some of your cats did one or more of what I will soon describe, and that's cool.  Here are things I loved about Mimi:

• her petite, pink pawprints.  I know male white cats also have pink pawprints, but Mimi's were so... perfect for her.  Coupled with the dainty white paws, the pawprints were extremely feminine, and the claws gave her that "I'm girly, and don't fuck with me" look I fell for hard.  When you'd pick her up and hold her, she'd sometimes cross her paws, looking like an impatient little diva. 
• her markings.  Calicos' markings can look either amazing or ludicrous; Mimi's was the former.  The orange and black patches worked perfectly, from the black reaching her eyes to the rainbow tail.  Hell, the inside of her left ear was calico-patched.  
• she was a damned cute snoozer. 
• her indignition, particularly when it came to her territory.  The bedroom was definitely Mimi-land, particularly the bed.  She had her corner of the bed, and we made sure her place was marked with an old blanket Tori had from college.  Except for when the sunbeams shone through the living room window or the sun room, Mimi slept on the bed.  This made it difficult when Tori and I, say, wanted to get intimate.  We'd have to remove her from the premises and close the door behind her.  After one such incident, I got up to go to the bathroom.  I opened the door, and there was Mimi, sitting right in front of the door, glaring at me as if I farted in her ear.  She stood up, gave me a very curt and disgusted "meow!", and walked right past me into the bedroom and onto her blanket.  (Translation: "I don't care what you two apes do in your spare time, but you do NOT kick me off my bed!")
• her fat ass.  Although she never weighed more than 15 pounds, she had a big butt typical of her attitute: she was the Mo'nique of calicos.  When dinnertime came along (or when she believed dinnertime was supposed to be, defined as several hours before dinner), she'd run at a fast waddle, her butt swaying as she trotted. 
• her rat-like skinny tail.  The tip of it was slightly bent, probably broken years before.  It was slightly imperfect, just like her, and that in turn made her perfect.
• her trill.  Mimi purred a lot, but brush or scratch her just the right way, and she'd give you this tribble-like high-pitched rrrrrrrrrr of contentment.
• her position as kitchen supervisor.  When Tori and/or I were cooking in the kitchen, you could be sure Mimi was there, waiting patiently for a food scrap or three.  She loved any kind of meat, and if anything came from a tit, she wanted a piece of that, too.  She tried more types of cheese than probably any cat on earth.  When not munching, she'd sit patiently on a Trader Joe's bag set for her by Tori, watching and waiting for an error of gravity to go her way.
• when Tori and I went to bed, Mimi would be with us, sleeping.  Occasionally, I'd start singing in falsetto, Frankie Valli-style.  She'd get up and walk right towards my face, staring, as if she was concerned for my well-being.  It never failed: I'd starting singing "Big Girls Don't Cry" or "Sherry," and she'd walk across the bed over to me, with a look that asked, "What the HELL is wrong with you?" 

There was so much to Mimi.  She was very much our little diva: demanding, pert, impatient.  Yet she was easy to purr, happy to be brushed (including her belly), and so much of part of our little family.  Tori and I will miss her so much; pictures and ashes can't come close to replacing her.

Signing a death warrant

I've seen plenty of these photos of Facebook recently.  Many of my friends have lost their cats this year.  Our friends Jim and Amy lost both their cats within a month.  I react like most cat-lovers do: I offer honest condolences to my friends and hope they are all right.  Then I move on, occasionally thinking about their loss and quietly thanking the fates for our own healthy cats.  But each posted R.I.P. carries with it an implicit warning: cats don't live forever.  If you spend twenty years with them, you're truly blessed. 

Mimi's problems started in August. She began having problems breathing through one of her nostrils.  It was extremely stuffed up, and first one vet, then a second couldn't come up with a reasonable solution.  A specialist found the problem: nasal lymphoma.  Faced with  some options, we immediately decided upon chemo.  After two weeks, Mimi's tumor looked to have gone into partial remission, and she was largely her old cranky self again.

Last week, however, after I returned from a four-day stay in the hospital for pancreatitis, Mimi began to regress.  The infection returned to her right nostril, then spread to both.  Her nose was clogged with snot, then a mix of snot and blood.  Then Tori found dried-up blood on the floor.  Sunday evening was the last time she ate.  Although hungry, she'd look at the food he offered her and turn away, as though she didn't know what it was.  Then she'd look up at us, wondering why we hadn't given her food yet. 

I took her back to the vet on Tuesday.  We came out of the vet with more meds and a bag of saline for me to inject into her for about ten minutes a day.  Call us Thursday, the oncologist's assistant told me.  Give us an update.

Thursday.  Today.  The day after Mimi refused food yet again.  The day after I had to puncture my own cat and fill her with life-saving fluids.  The day after she fought Tori and me with the energy of a cornered cougar just because we were trying to give her medicine.  The day after both Tori and I broke down, realizing that we, like Mimi, were also cornered, and that the worst option for Mimi was probably the best. 

Today I made the call.  The oncologist talked to me about options.  A second CT scan to see if the tumor had spread.  A neti pot-like process to clear out her sinuses.  Rescue chemotherapy to starve out the tumor.  The odds of success? 50/50.  How much time did she think Mimi would get?  2-3 months.

No, I thought.  No more.  Strip away the expenses.  Strip away the emotional pain Tori and I are going through.  Strip away every single remotely-selfish element and whittle it all down to the one issue that matters: What about Mimi's quality of life? More injections, more failed attempts to eat, more nose bleeds, more struggling to breathe...

My oncologist told me, sounds like half of you has made up your mind, and the other half is trying to rationalize it.  Yes.  Let me know, she says.  I hung up.

I summoned up every ounce of self-control I had and called Tori at work.  Fighting tears, we came to the same conclusion: No more CT scans.  No more chemo.  No more picking up Mimi and fighting to squirt medicine and liquid food down her throat.  I hung up and called our regular vet.  She was in a meeting, but would call us ASAP.  I uttered the word "euthanize" to the clinic employee on the other end of the line, and her voice immediately lowered, almost a whisper.  Ok, she said. 

When Tori got home from work, we met with the vet.  We told her about the options, and that the options added up to more stress and misery for Mimi, and she agreed.  We set a date and time.  We discussed cremation.  We discussed the possibility of a house call.  We broke down again. 

Tomorrow, Tori has the day off.  I will go to work, but only for a couple of hours.  I will come back, and we will drive Mimi up the wall with attention, brushing her, loving her.  We will spend our day with Mimi, offer her our love, scritches, and kisses.  And the next day we will do what we desperately do not want to do, and we will dump the remainder of our tears into that crazy cranky beautiful calico soul, and we will post a photo on Facebook, and we will then cry for our loss, for our reduced family, and for the fortune of having Mimi in our lives. And then we will move on, because that's what we're supposed to do. 

I'm not here, nor is Mimi

No drink in my hand.  It's too early in the day for alcohol, and besides, I just took my meds an hour ago.  I'm not sure if combining booze with my meds is chemically a bad thing, but I work on the assumption that mixing booze with any meds is a bad idea, and so far that philosophy has suited me well. 

Mimi has undergone two rounds of chemo so far, and as of Thursday was doing fabulously.  One of our vets called us, congratulating us on the good news, that her tumor has gone into partial remission. 

Then yesterday came, and the recovery blew a tire.  Mimi wouldn't take her meds that morning, and when I got home from work, I found Mimi hovering over her water bowl in the kitchen, a small puddle of drool on the floor.  I looked into the bedroom and found vomit everywhere.  Every ten minutes or so, she'd try to drink water, only to fail.  I finally took a syringe and forced some lukewarm water down her throat, then called the vet.

This shit is normal, I was assured.  And I understand that.  The part of my brain that took the SATs understands that.  The part of my brain that practically sprinted Mimi to the vet, however, does not care how normal it is.  It does not care that chemo can wreck an appetite, can make one so nauseous, swallowing anything is an ordeal.  It refuses reasoning and logic, preferring love and desperation.  

After the vet gave her an injection of water and some anti-nausea medication, I took my calico home. She returned to her water bowl, sat, and waited.  She hasn't eaten anything since, and Tori and I have had to crush her meds, mix them in water, and deliver it to her orally through a syringe, but we're determined to see this through. 

After Mimi's two weeks of chemo, I was fooled into thinking it was going to be easy.  Everything was fine, and it would continue to be so.  I let my guard down, and got a vicious hit to the solar plexus as my reward. 

I've been lucky.  My father, grandfather, and many of my relatives succumbed to cancer, but I was physically too far away to witness the fight.  I got an occasional snapshot of the fight during those rare moments when I could fly out to visit, but I couldn't witness the daily battles, when every activity one normally takes for granted is suddenly a test of endurance.  Sometimes you can eat, sometimes you can't.  Sometimes you can drink water, other times you need help.  In Cancerland, this is normal, but I only visited Cancerland; I've never lived there before.

So Mimi is curled up on her pillow in the living room, next to the radiator.  I'll place a water dish nearby when I'm done here.  And I might have to squirt another 5 mL of water down Mimi's throat later.  It's part of life here in Cancerland, and I'd better get used to it.

A tragic kitty fairy tale

This story is called "The kitty cat who starved to death because the mean ol' Daddy Monster refused to feed her before dinner time." 

Once upon a time, there was a cute calico kitty cat [ed. note: actually, a middle-aged cranky calico] named Mimi.  She was the nicest sweetest cat in the world [ed. note: yeah, right.], playful and cheery and NEVER, EVER took a massive, stinky dump in the litter box without covering it up.  Yes sirree, she was the most loveable cat in the world.  And she never made a fuss about dinnertime; she'd wait patiently until 5:30pm 5:00pm 4:30pm 4:25pm before announcing it was time for dinner. 

But the mean ol' Daddy Monster didn't like feeding Mimi, so he'd act like he was busy on the computer, or pretend he was at work or school.  That nasty ol' Nazi Daddy Monster would actually delay dinnertime until dinnertime!  What a bad man he was!

One day, little Mimi (did I mention how adorable she was?) wasn't feeling well.  By gum, she thought, she was a starving kitty cat!  She didn't know why; maybe that mean ol' Nazi Terrorist Daddy Monster refused to feed her the night before and used his Nazi terrorist mind control device to convince the innocent kitty girl that her tummy was full.  Either way, by 2pm she was weak from hunger, and she started meowing. 

"Help, Daddy Monster!  Feed me now!  I know I never request dinner this early, but surely you could see it in your heart to feed me a teensy bit early just this once!" 

But the mean ol' Nazi Terrorist Daddy Klansman Monster refused to listen to her.  "YER GONNA EAT AT DINNERTIME AND LIKE IT!  BWAHAHAHAHA."

By 3pm poor Mimi was beside herself.  She barely had the strength to meow.  "Please, Daddy Monster!"  I can hardly hold myself up!  Please feed me before it's too late!"

"HMPH!" the mean ol' Daddy Monster, the Horrible Creator of All Things Mean and Nasty snorted, "NOW I'M NOT GONNA FEED YOU UNTIL 5PM HARHARHARHARHAR."  He blew his nose and coughed up black bile from his evil heart as he returned to playing on Facebook. [ed. note: The Facebook part is true.]

As 4:30pm approached, Mimi's meows grew weaker and weaker until she could no longer squeak, and at 4:28pm the good angels of Kitty Heaven finally took her up and filled poor Mimi up with Friskies and cheese and whipped cream and dead mice because that mean ol' Daddy Monster Anti-Kitty antichrist wouldn't feed her until dinnertime. 

When that ol' Daddy Monster finally got up his fat, evil butt to feed her, he only found her skeleton near her empty food dish.  Suddenly the mean 'ol Daddy Monster realized what he had done and started blubbering like a little bratty baby because his sweet calico kitty Mimi was all gone, taken to a better place than his smelly Nazi headquarters.  "AROOO!!!" he cried out in shame and remorse.  Then he threw himself out the window and got all smashed up in the backyard, where hungry kitties from all over the neighborhood gathered around and ate him all up until there was nothing left of him but his coal black heart, which was too poisonous to eat. And that's why you should feed your kitties when they're hungry.

[Ed. note: Mimi was just fed a half-hour ago and is waiting around for Tori and I to fix dinner.  She's so cute.] 

Our diva at the vet

The part of my brain that aced my SATs twenty-odd years ago knows the truth: cats don't necessarily love their owners.  Love is an unknown emotion to them.  But I believe they enjoy food, shelter, and a clean cat box in return for genuine affection, if not love.  And that's fine with me.  But we humans - we do love, and our pets, like our human friends, we can't help but love. 

Mimi, my cranky calico, suddenly stopped eating Thursday evening.  When my wife normally gets home, she can instantly tell if I fed the cats before I left for work or not.  If the former, Jack might meet Tori at the door, if only to confirm it's her before moseying back to the living room to lie down on the chair, request some play time, or attack Mimi, who's trying to digest her Friskies in peace.  If not, both Mimi and Jack meet Tori at the door, demanding they be fed right away.  Never mind if my wife wants to put her purse down, take off her jacket, breathe - they zip towards the kitchen (Jack occasionally swatting at Mimi along the way), walk around in circles, attempting to find the spot on the kitchen floor where they expect dinner to land closest to them. 

This time around, I had to leave for work early, so Tori would presumably meet the hungry cats at the door.  But Mimi stayed in bed.  Wouldn't eat.  Wouldn't drink.  No interest whatsoever.  Moreover, her abdomen was sore, and she'd growl every time she was touched there. 

Tori called me at work, I came home an hour early.  We discussed whether we should take her to the emergency veterinarian tonight, or wait until tomorrow morning for her to see our regular vet (who's only two blocks away from us).  We forced water into her using a straw, and as she laid down on the hallway doormat (a place she never hangs out), I laid down with her, stroking her head and back and comforting her the best I could. When my back could no longer tolerate lying on the hardwood floor, I gingerly carried her into the bedroom to join a now-asleep Tori in bed.  I don't think she moved the entire night. 

She was feeling slightly better the next morning, but we took no chances.  We got her to the vet first thing in the morning, despite Mimi's protest that, really, she's a lot better MROOWWW.  She may be a cat, but she knows damn well what being stuffed into the cat kennel means - a thermometer up her butt.  And that's what she got - along with blood tests, urine tests, X-rays (did I mention we bought pet insurance for her and Jack last month?) and what was most likely pure hell for her.  I went home and waited for the vet's phone call so I could pick her up.  The vet originally told me I could pick her up in a little over a half-hour, but that she'd call me back as soon as they were done. 

Never trust a doctor when it comes to time.  An hour went by, then another.  I called the office, and I was assured they were almost done.  Another hour went by.  I had a lunch appointment with a former boss to discuss him writing a letter of recommendation for me, and I could skip it.  I called the vet a third time to have them call me on my cell when they were done, and right on cue, as I approached the restaurant, I got the call to pick her up.  I decided to have the lunch anyway, and five hours after I dropped her off, Mimi was back in my arms.  The whole shabang cost over $750 (pet insurance: nice!), but she was in good shape.  The vet isn't exactly sure what's wrong - they found a spot in one of her kidneys, possibly a calcification.  Her white blood count was slightly elevated, indicating an infection.  It could also be (and if you've read my blog for over a year, this will blow your mind) pancreatitis.  Some blood work had to be shipped to another lab to confirm anything.

When I return Mimi from the vet, I always park the cat kennel on the bed and open the gate so she doesn't have to walk far to get some sleep.  This time, she walked right out, jumped off the bed, and into the kitchen, where she parked her ass right down and looked up at me with those "Where's my dinner, dammit?" eyes.  I told her to wait, and she went to her box to take a leak - a relief, because she hadn't urinated in over a day.  She got some bland food from the vet, which she ate immediately and hasn't munched on since because she really, really doesn't like it.  She also has to suffer (along with Tori and me, who have to administer it) taking antibiotics, which has curbed her appetite considerably.  Thankfully, she and Jack were already scheduled for their annual check-ups this Thursday before Mimi got sick, so we'll have far more information (and hopefully, no more antibiotics). 

Everyone gets sick once in a while, but Mimi is about eight years old, well into middle age - and calicos are not known for their long life spans.  As Mimi continues to fight her illness, Tori and I are painfully aware that her stay with us will be nowhere near as long as, say, Jack's.  I'm always fully prepared for her illnesses.  I called the ER for advice, set up the appointment the next morning, took her to the vet.  I've gotten good at that.  I'm not certain, however, if I'm prepared for her to leave us.  Then again, who is?

If my cats could only tell time...they'd still be pains in the ass

5:00pm.  That's when Tori or I clank the plastic dishes and open up a can of Friskies.  Originally 5:30, we moved it up a half-hour so we could get an additional 30 minutes of peace and quiet.  We refuse to go any earlier because if we did, it wouldn't matter.  Jack and Mimi practically demand at least two hours of meowing, running to the kitchen at the slightest impulse, fighting each other, staring at the Mommy/Daddy Monster.  If we fed them at, say, 4:30pm, they'd start their routine at 2:30pm (which they already do on occasion), to the point when we'd be feeding them at 2am to end their midnight whining.  We can't win.

Worse, Mimi has taken to barfing again.  This seems to happen every couple of months: she'll be cute little Mimi for six weeks or so, chowing down her dinner and licking any plate she can pin down with her paws.  Then for a week she turns into Barferella, where nothing stays in her system for very long.  There's not much we can do; for three or four days Tori and I keep our ears peeled for the familiar and frightening sound of a cat ready to upchuck.  When we hear it, we make a beeline for the nearest dishrag or paper towel, hoping to get it under her head before she unleashes onto our dirty laundry.   Sometimes we succeed, others we don't.  We've gone through far more Spray & Wash since we got the cats than in the nearly four decades of our current incarnations. 

Yes, we've gone to the vet about this.  Three times.  Results?  An unsure vet and a $300 vet bill.  Not total.  Each time.  It's no fun for Mimi, either: unlike Jack, who doesn't mind going to the vet as long as he gets to go outside, Mimi hates the vet.  So to keep ourselves - and Mimi - sane, we're trying other tactics, none of which Mimi likes.

First tactic: brown rice and tuna for the cranky calico.  Although Mimi loves tuna, she is extremely unimpressed with Tori's dinner recipe.  Our reaction: tough kitty toenails.  So she eats it, but she don't like, especially when combined with our second tactic: trimming the dinner itself.  Mimi loves to eat.  She loves her food, Jack's food, and our food.  No matter what Tori and I may be eating, Mimi needs to be a part of the experience.  If we're eating, say, carrots, we must give Mimi a sniff of one so she'll leave us alone.  And even then, she's convinced we're hiding the *real* food from her, because we're greedy and selfish monsters.  So cutting her food intake makes for a very cranky calico.  But she hasn't barfed since we adjusted her diet.

I should be home in about an hour.  I can't wait until the kitties throng around me as I walk through the door.  And of course, they'll want their dinner twenty hours early.

Every kitty needs a bosom for a pillow

Jack and Mimi have been in charge of our household for over a year and a half now, and every spot in the apartment is fair game for running, barfing, and sleeping - including my wife's bosom.

Last Sunday, my lovely wife sat down for yet another wearily amazing episode of "Mad Men."  She and Mimi have their Sunday nights down pat: Mimi always sits on the couch with her, claiming the right end of the sofa, where she curls up and passes out while Tori watches Jon Hamm do something amazing on the tube.  After the end of the show, Tori checks out Television Without Pity to see what everyone else thought of the episode (almost always their best yet), while Mimi sits impatiently outside the office door, looking up at her and silently demanding she get her ass into bed.  After committing herself to bedtime ablutions, Tori then climbs into bed.  Mimi follows, finds herself a spot along Tori's legs, and soon both are asleep.  It's very cute, and if it weren't a marriage breaker I'd include a photo. 

Mimi apparently decided last week that the end of the couch wasn't cushy enough.  She occasionally walks onto Tori's lap for a grooming and a short snooze, but my this time my wife wasn't sitting up; rather, she was slumped on the couch.  Since the lap seemed out of the question, Mimi aimed higher, climbing onto Tori's chest, padding and pummeling her breasts until they seemed properly comfy, and settled down for a little nap. 

I'm not sure what annoyed Tori more: that Mimi was lying on her boobs, or she was blocking her view of the TV.  I suffered no annoyance whatsoever; I burst out laughing and couldn't stop until I had taken a sufficient number of photos from my cell phone.  Mimi was nonchalant about the whole ordeal; she loves a camera and willingly posed, blissfully perched on Tori's chest.  It almost broke my heart when Tori gently picked Mimi up and plopped her on the couch. 

We knew we had one feline comedian in the household; Jack is usually our slapstick cat, jumping around like a maniac and bonking into anything more solid than water.  Mimi's humor is subtle almost to nonexistence: she's the Margaret Dumont to Jack's Groucho Marx.  I'm pleased as punch to find out she has a screwball streak after all. 

The weekend of my cold

It was only a week ago when I first felt a little soreness in my throat.  By Thursday, the sore throat had become a full-blown cold.  Unlike the cold from six months ago, which mutated into a nasty case of bronchitis, this particular cold virus has largely come and gone.  The weekend was ruined, and I had to cancel both my volunteer work and a weekend project this week, but the weekend weather sucked anyway, so at least everyone else in Chicago was miserable. 

Tori was home, but she was unfortunately preoccupied with a Christmas card project, so Mimi took over the job of nursing me back to health.  Although her chicken-noodle soup preparation skills need improvement, she stayed in bed with me all day Saturday, being careful not to hog the comforter as she normally does.  Tori did back her up on occasion, buying me orange juice and Nyquil.  By Sunday evening I was well enough to make pancakes for dinner. 

I'm now sufficiently recovered to go to work this week.  If I had sick time at either of my jobs, I'd be a little bummed about this, but since I don't, hooray for a full paycheck! 

There will be food

Did I give Jack a piece of turkey from my turkey sandwich?  Yes I did.  Am I spoiling him rotten?  Yes.  But in my defense, it's so cute how he begs. 

A million years ago, cats were powerful, evil creatures, ripping out the throats of any unlucky soul unwilling to offer bits of their turkey sandwich.  By the 21st century, cats gave up their strength and intelligence but never their desire for cold cuts.  So instead of ripping my throat out, Jack - a direct descendant of these terrifying creatures - instead embarks on a series of activities passed down over thousands of litters:

1. He hears Daddy rummaging in the fridge, hears the "cat sign" (the crinkling of the cellophane housing the cold cuts) and casually ambles over to the kitchen.  He never runs; that would be seen as desperate and uncouth.

2. He then looks up at me with his big yellow eyes as if to say, "Hey...ummmm, dude!  (He never remembers my name.)  How's it going?  Haven't seen you in a while.  I see you got some processed meat there, my man.  What a lucky guy!  Say, I don't suppose you could spare some of that, hmm?  You know, I heard on NPR the other day that cold cuts are unhealthy for a human digestive system.  Makes you run to the litter box more, know what I'm saying?  Didn't say anything about a kitty's digestive system, so I'm guessing I'm okay."

3. He then rubs himself against my leg.  I've lived with cats before, they all did this, and I find the practice utterly pathetic.  You squirm and try to run away when I skritch you and show you some genuine affection, but when I'm preparing a sandwich, then I get the love?  Screw you, feline.  I tell him to bugger off.  Jack knows this initial approach will fail, but he hasn't played all the cards in his paw just yet.

4. Jack flops down on the floor, offering his belly.  "Really!  I love you, what's your face!  You are the sunbeam of my life!  Don't you love me as well?  You wouldn't chase me down the hallway or wake me up during the day to skritch me if you didn't!  Now gimme some turkey, dammit."  Again, I've seen this crap before; mother cats no doubt teach begging to their kittens before their eyes are even open.  I'm unswayed.  But Jack's not done yet.

5. At that point, Jack presses his head against the floor, then performs a somersault.  This is beyond cute.  In my opinion, this took time, practice, and - most importantly - hard work to pull off.  Mimi, for example, couldn't pull off a somersault if she got a whole salmon out of the deal.  So Jack did something cats don't normally do: worked hard to refine his begging technique.  Sufficiently charmed, I pull off a piece of turkey and hand it over. 

6. After nom-nom-noming his treat, Jack will look up at me, resuming his begging stance until I give him another piece or walk away with my sandwich.  But he will not do the somersault again.  He knows well enough not to overuse his talent. 

Now Mimi - that's a different story.  If both my wife and I are in the kitchen, then Mimi must complete the threesome.  But she's too much of a diva to do anything she considers beneath her station.  She'll just sit there and look up at us.  So she's not rewarded as much.  And you readers out there, don't think you can get a piece of my sandwich by performing somersaults.  Jack does it naked on a hardwood floor: let's see you try THAT.