Miles Watson's Blog: ANTAGONY: BECAUSE EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO MY OPINION - Posts Tagged "cats"

A few weeks ago I came home with a four month old kitten. He was -- he is -- black with a tiny white star on his chest. His paws are oversized and he is polydactyl, but in an even more unusual way: instead of six toes, he has six claws on five toes. I had about thirty perspective names for him, none of which fit, but after watching his antics, I finally dubbed him Hilts, after Steve McQueen's character in THE GREAT ESCAPE: Captain Virgil Hilts, an American air force officer known as "The Cooler King" for his tendency to get thrown into an isolation cell (known as The Cooler) for constantly trying to escape the German prison camp in which he is imprisoned.

Like his namesake, Hilts is always trying to break the rules and defy authority -- meaning me. He bolts into the hallway of my apartment whenever I open the door. He burrows under sheets and blankets and piles of paper. He tunnels into paper bags and behind couches and beneath beds. He's forever running, jumping, attacking, retreating, and making an utter nuisance of himself. Today he discovered he is large enough to leap on the shelf over the kitchen sink where I keep my plants. One loud crash later, several of the plants were demonstrating the law of gravity.

To try and deal with his insanity, I have purchased a number of toys for him to play with. As of this writing, almost 100% of them are missing. I have no idea what he does with them. I live in a one-bedroom apartment. It is a large one-bedroom apartment, but still, it's not a mansion or a castle or even a two-story house. There are a finite number of places he could take these items. Where the fuck does he hide them? I lifted the couch and found nothing. Ditto the various pieces of furniture. It's all just gone. And don't tell me "look under the bed." A week after I got him, I removed the bedframe and lay the box-spring and the mattress directly onto the floor. I had no other choice. Despite every effort, including expensive plastic barriers, he was forever finding his way beneath the bed and then trying to eat the yellow foam found among its slats and springs. This foam is not poisonous, but it will block his intestinal tract, so now I sleep very low to the ground. Like a college student. It's not so bad, but it makes getting out of bed a little more difficult than I would care to admit.

Hilts has way too much energy for his five pound body. Indeed, I marvel at how long he will run, jump, roll, writhe, and generally go crazy, before he takes a breather. But even his respites from kitten insanity are brief. I would estimate on a given day he goes through three distinct periods of madness, each similar to the Vulcan "pon farr" on STAR TREK. "Pon farr," for those of you who are not nerds, is the time when Vulcans shed their sexual repression and go buck-fucking-wild, either screwing or fighting until they exhaust all their pent-up emotions. Hilts is fixed, but you wouldn't know it from how much pon farr he practices on stuffed mice, clothing, cardboard boxes, crumpled-up balls of paper, or my arm.

Hilts is very affectionate, but only on his own terms. He wakes me up via a ritual of snuggling, purring, snorting, and stomping. He repeats this ritual often during the day, but if I pick him up, he struggles just like Steve McQueen when the Nazis grab him. Like all cats, he resists any kind of direction and can generally be counted upon to do the exact opposite of whatever it is I want him to do. Again, just like Hilts in the movie, who doesn't even get along with his fellow inmates.

Hilts could not care less about my job, even though it keeps him in treats and toys. I work from home, but don't think for a moment he won't jump on my keyboard, swat at my power cords, or climb onto my shoulder in the middle of a Microsoft Teams meeting. He also enjoys howling and making a fierce trilling noise whose meaning I don't entirely understand, so let's see what the otherwise worthless AI has to tell me:

"A trilling cat sound is a short, friendly, nasal sound that indicates happiness, affection, or a desire for attention or a request. It's a positive vocalization, often compared to a chirp or a combined purr-and-meow, and serves as a greeting or an invitation to follow. The sound is produced with a closed mouth, involving the vibration of vocal cords, and is a sign of a good relationship between your cat and you."

Good to know. Maybe I should start trilling around girls I like.

Sometimes I try to write, and Hilts jumps on my desk and ensconces himself on my keyboard. At other times he hides in the sock drawer, fights the bathroom mat, or launches violent ambushes on my feet from 45 degree angles. He is a big fan of the perpendicular ambush. Like my dear departed cat Spike (2007 - 2024), he is very fond of butter: also eggs, especially the yolks. But there are hundreds of kinds of cat food he wouldn't eat if you paid him. I know, because I've tried.

Hilts is known for holding his mouth open in anticipation of a biting attack on man or object. His kitten teeth are as fine as white sand. The inside of his mouth is pink and sharply ribbed. He often looks like the Loch Ness monster as portrayed in the DOCTOR WHO episode "Terror of the Zygons."

And that's Hilts, or rather a portion of what I know about the demon my friend Penny calls "Five Pounds of Fury." He's nuts, he gives me little peace, and he seems determined to get me fired, but I can't say he's boring.