Here are just a few of the things I find undesirable:

Food that doesn’t meet my exacting standards.

Trips to the vet.

The cat carrier — whether I’m going to the vet or not.

That stupid cat who lives in the kitchen trashcan and eats at the same time I do.

Hairball remedy.

Please keep all these things away from me.

So she takes me into the garage and I can see through the cat carrier mesh that she has a new car.

I was totally NOT impressed by this! Even though she let me wander around inside it. You know and I know that cars only mean ONE THING.

After a few minutes, she stuck me back in the carrier and told me we were going for a little ride. And next thing I knew my suspicions were correct.

She took me to the vet.

I was gypped. Shanghaied and gypped.

One of these nights I should sneak out and take that car on a joy ride of my own. And I know one place I’m not going to!

Where do you think I should go with my human’s car?

Binga has still commandeered the Motor Mouse. My birthday was a total gyp.

Sometimes my human really gets on my nerves. It isn’t anything specific that she does. She’s just annoying occasionally and so I ignore her and pretend I am not her cat. This time I even tore off my collar and left it lying on the floor.

Boodie has never had a collar. I think she is envious.

As soon my human found the collar she put it back on me. But I think she was annoyed with me too because I looked outside and she had made friends with some stray 6-toed cat.

I think he lives somewhere in the neighborhood. He likes to flaunt the fact that he’s running around free and we’re not. It especially grates on Binga. My human’s boyfriend had a barbecue for some friends one Sunday and Binga got all excited. She loves parties. She especially loves party food.

She didn’t get to check out the spread for very long. She got exiled to the cat tree.

I don’t like parties. I went up to the bedroom and stayed there. My human brought up a tortilla chip for me. I think those chips smell funny. Humans eat weird things.

I thought it was more interesting a few days later, when it was laundry day. I don’t like it when the sheets get removed from my bed.

But I do like it when the new ones are brought out.

My human’s birthday was this month. Her boyfriend didn’t get her anything interesting (at least, nothing interesting to me. I mean what’s a cat going to do with a blouse and a piece of cardboard with some writing and numbers written on it?). The dumbest thing he got her was a plush frog wearing a turtleneck.

My human tried to get me to pose with it. I almost stopped speaking to her again.

I have been itching all month and I wound up with a big sore behind my ear. It really didn’t bother me all that much, but my human kept staring at it. I should have known that meant trouble.

One afternoon, she woke me up from a pleasant dream, but it wasn’t for any birthday treat, that’s for sure.

I saw that big, black cat carrier and I knew this was not going to be fun!

My human stuffed me in that horrible thing and, even worse, put me in the car!

I wound up in some horrible torture chamber. This guy put me on a scale and said I weighed 6 and a quarter pounds.

Then he left and I hid behind a fan. The room smelled terrible, like medicine or something. Yeech. This guy with a white coat came in and looked at me. He said I was cute.

He checked out my sore and said it was just from scratching, nothing more. Then he rolled me over and looked at my stomach and said I needed Advantage. My human said she already had some at home waiting for me and the other two cats. I remembered that stuff from last year — it was gross! What a rotten day.

Even though I knew I was going to have to deal with that stinky Advantage stuff once I got back, I was still relieved to be home.

 

»August 2004

Dear Sick,
Your human doesn’t hate you. In fact she’s behaving in typical human fashion—the more they care about you, the more they do things to annoy and torture you. The barbaric practice of taking us to the vet when we’re ill is just one of the more extreme examples of this. I really don’t understand the whole logic, or illogic, behind this, either. When you’re sick the last thing you want is for some strange-smelling human to be poking his or her hands (and other objects) where they’re not wanted. And the whole medicine thing—that’s what that liquid is that your human is forcing down your throat. Yeah, it’s awful stuff, but the alternative—having a pill forced down you instead—isn’t much better. The only thing I can conclude from this type of behavior is that when we’re sick, humans feel so terribly helpless that they freak out and will do anything in an attempt to make us get well. It’s really a testament to our patience that we tolerate it. In a perfect world, humans would figure out how to nurse us through illnesses without 1) stuffing us in a cat carrier and hauling us to the vet, 2) forcing disgusting liquids and pills on us and especially 3) coming anywhere near us with that wretched glass tube. But, I’m sad to say, this world is anything but perfect (that’s what you get when humans are in charge), and so your only alternative is to let your human know of your displeasure. Every time she finishes forcing that liquid down your throat, run off to the opposite end of the room and glare at her from afar. Don’t let her even touch you for the rest of the day. If she acts hurt, then keep it up—it’s working! When you see her going for the bottle of medicine, hide someplace where she will have a really difficult time extricating you. Speak to her as little as possible—only communicate to express your displeasure at being manhandled, and when you’re hungry. When she finally stops giving you the medicine, give it a few more days before making up with her. She’ll be so relieved she’ll probably treat you extra nicely for quite a while. Enough hints like this and maybe someday humans will figure out that they need to find new ways to treat sick cats. But probably not—they are a really dense bunch.

The new issue of Cats USA 2004 just came out—you’ll find my photo on page 103! This is very exciting—it means I’m now a star!

We just got our first bag of free IAMS cat food. My human picked up the Lamb & Rice flavor. I was dubious about it at first—my human has brought home some awful dried cat food in the past. But this stuff was great! All of us love it. I think we can live with IAMS for breakfast for the next year (just so long as we keep getting the Nutro chunks for dinner).

We also have a new cat carrier. There were a bunch of really horrible fires in Southern California in October, and even though none of them were near our house my human was concerned because we only have two cat carriers—one for Binga and one for me. Boodie, being a foster, never had her own. So my human’s boyfriend brought home an old one from the vet clinic where he works. It’s actually bigger and sturdier than either of ours, but Boodie hates it. Binga likes it, though—she even let the humans shut the door on her.

After Binga’s brave display, I decided to check it out, but I waited ’til no one was looking (or at least I thought no one was looking—the fact that there are photos proves that there’s a snoop around here somewhere).

 

More work is being done on the house. This tall guy came in and started painting the doors in the hallway. He had to take them outside and sand them and Binga thought that would be her chance to run down in the basement again. The last time she did this, she got under the house and it took the humans forever to retrieve her. Well, she was out of luck this time—the painter taped plastic over the basement doorway.

Then another guy came by and started tearing up the carpet on the stairs. This kind of bummed me out because the carpet made a nice surface to claw. My human didn’t like the carpet. She’s been complaining about it for as long as I’ve known her.

I have to admit the staircase looks better without the carpet, and it isn’t even finished yet.

 

While the guy was pulling up the carpet and removing the pointy staples and nails, we cats got locked in the bedroom. We hate when that happens. My human pulls out the toys in a vain attempt to placate us. Well, actually it’s not always such a vain attempt. But you can see that Boodie’s heart isn’t in it.

 

All this has completely frustrated Binga – you can tell when she’s irritated because her tail starts flipping.

She went on a rampage the moment she was free to roam the house again. She caused more trouble in the past couple of weeks than she has all year! One night she went in the downstairs bathroom and played with that roll of paper the humans keep in there.

Then she jumped in the linen closet and pulled out some towels. She was proud of her work.

 

The tile in the upstairs bathroom wasn’t done a moment too soon. I can’t say that Binga has calmed down now that she’s got the bathtub back, but at least she can take out her aggressions by rolling around in it again. She jumps in the bathtub every morning.

Now she spends the afternoons napping instead of creating mischief.

»December 2003