icebluenothing

So when my cat is pestering me as I'm getting out of the shower, I've taken to holding out one wet, outstretched arm, and letting droplets of water fall from my fingers to his face. This is, of course, because I am horribly cruel, and am greatly amused by the fact that even though he looks quite irritated when I do this, he doesn't get out from under the water torture.

This morning, though, his reaction was entirely different. He was reaching up toward the falling water quite eagerly, licking the drops from his face. How cute! thought I. How adorable! He's come to take this as a sign of affection!

---

Hours later, I noticed his water bowl was completely empty.

So, naturally, because of my amazing lack of bill-paying abilities I mentioned before, I live pretty much in constant fear, as I demonstrated to myself just a moment ago:

Noticing that it's started to get a little dark in here while I've been sitting here surfing the web, I reached up to turn on my lamp. It didn't come on.

Oh my God! my hindbrain screamed. The power's been shut off!

A second later, my forebrain points out, The computer's still on, you jackass. Yeah.

I follow the power cord to the outlet, and yes, it's come unplugged, for no good goddamm reason at all. I suspect the cat did it, following instructions transmitted to his whiskers by his Lord and Master, Satan.

(These would, of course, be the same instructions that made him come to the conclusion that treebyleaf's frickin' skull needed a little fresh air last night. Someone explain to me again why we keep animals in our homes? Didn't we build homes to keep the animals out?)

I'm trying to do what the cat psychology textbooks tell you to do:

Whenever I catch the cat clawing the couch, I pick him up and take him over to his scratching post. I try to coax him to claw the post instead, and if he does, I am to praise him.

I can be pretty direct about trying to "coax" him -- gently holding on to his front legs and moving his paws back and forth over the surface of the scratching post. Usually, he just stares at me like I'm completely insane.

So a few minutes ago, I'm doing this, because he was clawing the couch again, and he's looking at me like I'm insane, and I find myself channeling Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb from Silence of the Lambs, yelling at the cat: "It puts the lotion in the basket! It does this whenever it's told!"

It worked.