It's been a long seven months. My younger human has been subjected to excessive inspections by our building manager, resulting in my scratching boxes being taken away, but not entirely by my people's own choice, since they know how scratching boxes can be a great stress reliever. I was so traumatized that I didn't even scratch the box my people managed to save for me, though the manager didn't understand (how can somebody understand who's never had a cat?). On top of it all, I even stayed out of my favorite chair, though my older human insists on borrowing it whenever my younger human uses the cat scoop in my litter box (he holds the bag while my younger human uses the cat scoop). Then while my younger human was away from home in October getting her sore left leg tended to at the hospital and a care facility, I started scratching a box when I heard she was coming home, though I hissed at her the day she came home, but more for the principle of the thing. Then tonight I relaxed in my favorite chair again. My people think I'm finally getting back to normal. We can only hope the good times will outlast the bad ones.
I have a reputation of absolutely hating fish, despite what my Humane Society papers say. I've even gone so far as to hiss at fish when seeing them on TV in nature shows and I won't go near Goldfish Crackers. Then late tonight my older human got the munchies and my younger human offered to warm up some salmon patties from our most recent Schwan's delivery. They fixed a couple of them like sandwiches and had a few chips besides. When I get the notion to share time with my people (at least with my older human), I indicate in various ways that I want a bite of something he's having, or at least a lick of it. What was I thinking, knowing that there was a salmon patty between two slices of bread? The first time my older human held down his sandwich, I sniffed it and licked it, though my people wonder if I might have actually taken a lick of the salmon. Then after that I took a couple bites of the bread. Even if my younger human would have managed to take a picture, there would be intense debate among my dog and cat friends as to whether I'd actually licked the salmon or not. Since we still have several salmon patties to finish, the debate will continue among my people as to whether I might finally break down and have a bite of fish which I haven't had for some years since I've been with my people except for when they mix Meow Mix Seafood Middles in my dry food with several other varieties. If I do, I'll have to ask myself again, "What was I thinking?"
Most people like having real-live pets like me. But some like to have electronic pets too. My younger human belongs to a page where one of the main draws is to have your own electronic pets - dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, fish and a few others. She started with four (a cat named after the real Playful Ebersold who lives in California - known to her friends as Playful the Empurress, a pit bull named Blackie, a rabbit named Dash whose name is based on the dog featured in the movie The Young Victoria called Dashie, and a dalmatian named Domino). Another pit bull named Boxer came to her all by himself as a three-time runaway from another kennel, and my younger human's electronic kennel has never been the same, though she loves Boxer as dearly as the rest. After the first several pets you get yourself, people can either send you one as a present or let you adopt them in after almost a week of petsitting (the sixth day is always exciting at that point when you get to adopt somebody in you've been caring for), or you get to keep certain pets as permanent fosters because the adoption option isn't available for them, which can be an unfortunate thing. If the person who gave them to you goes inactive after a certain number of months, the account goes down and you lose your permanent fosters. That's what has happened to my younger human. Besides a pit bull named Blake, somebody gave her another dog named Precious and a pet rock named Dozer as permanent fosters. She was able to take in Blake all right, but she wondered if she might lose Precious and Dozer someday since they couldn't be adopted. The pet rock was of less importance because those kept as permanent fosters can't develop to the point where a dragon could be hatched, though those with their own pet rocks are eager to bring forth a dragon, only to complain if they don't get the color they want. But Precious was a sister to Blake even though they were different breeds and she was considered a "premium pet" even though they're not adoptable from others except as gifts in the beginning. My younger human ran Blake and Precious together as often as she could, but tonight Precious came up missing from her pet list. My older human thought she punched the wrong button and lost her that way, but she acted on a hunch and looked up the name of the person Precious had come from. As she'd suspected, the name came up missing, so Precious and Dozer were gone too. My younger human decided to take in another dog like Precious, wondering how she could ever tell Blake that his sister had gone to the electronic pets' equivalent of the Rainbow Bridge through no fault of his own or on my younger human's part. Were he real-live like me, Blake would probably look for her and wonder why she'd be missing. My younger human might get another electronic pet to name after Dozer sometime soon, but she might not get a pet rock like Dozer was who went missing with Precious. She's fonder of the four-legged pets anyway. We can hope that the electronic pets will become real-live in another life and they and their people can spend time together that they lost while being parted on Earth. It's not the same as being reunited with a real-live pet exactly, but the feelings will probably be the same. And who hasn't wanted their electronic pet to be real-live at some point to give the same love and companionship as any real-live pet would? We don't want to say goodbye to Precious because she hasn't died like a real pet would, but we hope she knows that we'd like to see her again someday along with all the real pets we hope to be reunited with. But how are we going to break the news to Blake?
Ask a Cat Lady: Why Does My Cat Love Knocking Things Down?
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