By now you know, I just can not shake that call-of-the-wild. Still, I want to be fed when I show up. I like a good head and chin scratch, enjoy rolling around your ankles every blue moon or so and I can abide it, if one of the Indoor / Outdoor cats nose kisses me, especially the Gorgeous Diva Calico Gen.
Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte (Charlie) gives me the Deep Six and avoids me at all times. It is like there is a restraining order in place. I am not to come within a hundred yards or she will call 911. Who knew? She growls and hisses so ferociously that I am startled in to retaliation. Bad Boy Andy has a tendency to sneak up from behind and sniff my tail, which causes me to feel vulnerable for an attack and react as if he had thrown me a live hand grenade – not a sight Momma approves of, you can be sure, especially when I extend my right paw and smack his face.
That’s the thing about Momma. Pretend as she does that she is all understanding-compassionate, she knows a thimbleful (maybe) about wild cats. We are in high gear attack mode 24/7. Who knows what innocuous deed can turn in to a threat? I mean, I want to live in PEACE but I am a feral Tom Cat. We have our own Code of Ethics (not written about in Jakita’s Procedures and Policies for All Creation). All I ask for is respect like Jakita gives me. I have no fear of her. We can read each others’ minds and work in tandem. But domestic cats? I am clueless. I understand domestic cats have played a lot, been loved a lot and I should not over react but what is it with Bad Boy Andy? Andy, Gen and I can all sit and wait on the step, outside the door and file in without any confrontation, when it is opened.
Momma feeds each one of us in our own dish, at our own station. Everything is super cool and organized. Once I am finished eating, I sit on my haunches, wait for Andy to be finished and leave, so I can go to his feeding station and eat his leftovers. He sees me, (he sees everything, Brainiac that he is), appears to shrug his shoulders and meows to be left outdoors…then he sits and waits for me…
The very minute Momma leaves me out, the chase is on. I try to slink down the steps, out of his peripheral view but out of the corner of his eye, he catches my movement and it is on – down the gateway, across the street, under the fence, down the hill…oh, wait, might as well stop. Bad Boy Andy has already turned back and is sitting on the front bench, glowering at me for making him run so fast…. I know, I know, Andy will never catch me but still, why can he not lighten up? The message I am getting is, Andy is the baseball umpire and I-Am-Out-Of-There. It is like he is saying ‘Room, No Way – Board, Okay.’ Think I am on to something?
So Readers, help me repair this relationship or is it beyond hope? Is there an advice column feral cats can write to about domestics? Let me know. I am tired of being on the run!