Mr. Whiskerpuss

It is Steve Jobs fault that I now own a cat.  Last week I went into my daughter’s room and made the astute observation that her pet lizard, Pearl, had died.  How did I know?  Its face was pressed awkwardly against the aquarium and when I tapped on the side of it, the thing did not move.  I looked at my watch.  This pending psychological calamity was going to have to wait.  School was starting in ten minutes, grieving over a dead lizard takes fifteen and I seriously needed a break after the theatrical production my family starred in last week titled, “A Family Catches the Stomach Flu and Their Mother/Wife Heroically Saves Them Even Though She Wanted to Run Away.”

A few hours and a manicure later, I picked my daughters up from school and gently informed them of the news.  They cried, drew pictures and made funeral arrangements.  I asked my older daughter to text Mike and tell him what had happened.  Enter Steve Jobs.  Unbeknownst to me, autocorrect changed the text to “Earl died.”  Mike immediately started calling and texting me like a fucking stalker while I was trying to console our daughter.  I sent him a quick text back that read, “It was going to happen eventually.  Not a big deal freak.” 

Weeeeelllllll, not a big deal if a really close family friend is not named Earl.  My bad.  Note to self: Sending Mike a text to inform him a human died = pissed.  Mike came home with a denture box to bury Pearl in.  He went upstairs to remove the body and screamed, “GODDAMMIT!  IS THIS A JOKE ERIN?!  THE FUCKING THING ISN’T DEAD!”  I yelled back, “PRAISE GOD!  IT’S A MIRACLE!!!”  Apparently Pearl jumped when Mike tried to pick her up and ghost lizards are like so terrifying.  Unfortunately, I had already promised my kid a cat as a replacement.

Sooooooooooo, we now own a three-month old cross eyed kitten named Mr. Whiskerpuss who we are all really allergic to.  I have never owned a cat because they like to randomly attack people without warning and I have an anxiety disorder.  But Mr. W is different.  He is not a little dick.  He figured out where he was supposed to shit in ONE night whereas our dogs are still trying to unravel that great mystery.  The cat lady we got him from said to give him a little cat nip when we got home to calm him down.  I thoughtfully dumped the whole bag out and let him get stoned since our house can be a little overwhelming to newcomers.

Cat lady also told me to give him a bath once a week.  She obviously deplored me for some unknown reason.  Mr. W started shrieking and clawing at me like I was trying to stab him.  After my blood transfusion, I blew his fur dry and brushed him.  I then super-glued some hot pink claw covers on his nails.  Mr. W is a metrosexual and speaks with a French accent.  He says things like, “Thank you for cleaning zee dingleberrriez off of zee butthole.”  I wrote a post on facebook describing cat baths and said, “Poor Mr. W thought I was going to drown him in a river with some rocks and a burlap sack like his ancestors.”

Predictably, I received a message from some crazy cat person going on and on and on like I was the one that started that totally effective method of feline euthanasia. Yawn.  I had to sit on my hands to refrain from telling her I did not adopt Mr. W from a kill shelter rather I paid lots and lots of money for him.  Like usual, I took the high road and simply informed her that I know her cats suck the breath out of sleeping babies to suffocate them.  I then turned my computer off and resumed assembly of a scrapbook filled with pictures of Mr. W’s first week in his new home!

It is a fair assessment to say I am obsessed with my cat.  Mike loves zee caaat.  He says it is the coolest one he has ever had.  Duh.  We play with it constantly and bought a plethora of toys to keep it entertained throughout the day.  Meow.  Happy week to all my little kittens.  XO