He must be. What else would drive him to...
1. Puke repeatedly on Milo's formerly beige carpet, only inches from the very cleanable hardwood floor?
2. Turn into a goddamn howler monkey at 5:09 am every day because he wants his canned food, NOW bitches? You ain't heard a cat moan and grown and howl until you've heard Tuckerton, who stands in the hall right outside our bedroom door and bellows at the top of his lungs whenever his internal timer goes off, which is usually either in the middle of the night or inexplicably, at 5:09 am.
3. Pee in my good winter boots? How the heck am I supposed to get that particular stink out?? I even threw them in the wash, and it still didn't come out. This is a good story, actually...I generally keep my boots neatly stored in a corner of the dining room. Corey and I had been catching whiffs of cat pee in the dining room off and on for a few weeks. Finally I got tired of randomly smelling it and went on a hunt with the black light. That didn't turn up anything, which was odd, because we could definitely smell the pee. I shrugged it off as being an odd nose-ical illusion, since the area we were smelling pee (and where my boots also happened to be) is directly above the place in the basement where the litter boxes are. Well. I had to wear my good winter boots to work one day a week or so ago, because it had snowed a lot and I needed to clear off the truck before I left. As I was driving to work, I kinda smelled cat pee, but then again, I smell all sorts of weird things all the time on my way in to work, so I let it go. When I got to work, I traded out my boots for my sneakers, and left my boots in the employee area. When I walked in a few hours later to get them, the stench of cat pee was overpowering. (Many apologies to everyone I work with. Yes, it was me that stunk that day. I didn't know till I was leaving, I swear!!) I sniffed my boots. Yep. It was emanating from them. Particularly the left one. GROSS. I guess the stench had gotten reactivated from getting damp in the snow. At any rate, that stink isn't coming out despite the aggressive washing machine abuse, and I have come to the conclusion that I will have to throw those boots out and get new ones. By the way, since the boots have been relocated to the basement, the cat stink in the dining room is gone.
4. Shed everywhere, constantly, even when he's not moving? The cat is half bald because we clipped him short right after Christmas, and still his hair is everywhere. For one little cat, he makes a ginormous mess. Milo's bed has to get vacuumed regularly because Tuckerton spends 99% of his time on it.
5. Jump on the tables and get into our food if we leave it unattended for longer than 20 seconds? More than once we've walked away from the kitchen only to come back in a few minutes later and see Tuckerton up to his ears in our drink or happily munching away on whatever food was left out. You oughta see him when I bring potato chips to bed for snackin's. That cat is a sucker for sour cream & onion potato chips....he gets right up in my grill and won't leave me alone till I give him one.
6. Bite us randomly for no good reason? Don't look at Tuckerton sideways, you'll lose some blood for it.
So, at this rate, (he's been here just over a year) Tuckerton is making Monet, our little girl cat, look like an absolute adorable angel. I used to rate her as my number one enemy because she is the sort that vindictively poops in my shoes and shreds the crap out of the furniture just for fun. Lately though, she's been able to sit back and laugh in my general direction because I didn't know how easy we had it before Tuckerton came along. Just about the only good thing Tuckerton has going for him is that he is declawed, so at least he can't maim any one of us too horribly. Although if he thought about it long enough, he would figure a way.
And yes, I brought this cat here, as he needed a home because his family was suddenly "allergic" to him. (Me and my big dumb compassionate to about-to be-homeless-animals heart.) Yep, allergic, that's a good word for the way Tuckerton makes people feel about him. Now I fully understand the extent of the "allergies." I think I'm feeling a really big sneeze coming on....
* note to self: Seal point Himalayans are definitely just a pretty face...don't be fooled by those big blue "innocent" eyes!
PS: Tuckerton isn't going anywhere anytime soon, for those of you that think I would give up so easily. He's a major pain in the ass, but he has a home here, for better or for worse.
