MemeMachineGo!

In a great failing as a blogger, I haven’t written much about my cats. Since Pocahontas and I moved into our house in August 2003, I’ve been living with the two cats she brought with her. When Pocahontas went to a pound some seven years ago, she planned to get two females. When she saw a part-Siamese litter in one cage, there were three flame-point Siamese kittens, and, sleeping curled up together, one all-black male kitten (Pepper) and one all-white female (Salt.) And they went home with her.*

Pepper is the sweetest of cats. Salt is… challenging. Both of them were hanging out in the cute department when God was ladling out brains. They’re low-maintenance in many of the ways some cats are high-maintenance. They don’t overeat, so we can just put food in their bowl whenever it’s low, and not worry about a feeding schedule. We can leave the cat food bag out, because they don’t tear into it. They prefer the great outdoors to their litter box, so we rarely have to clean it.

But they’re emotionally needy. They regularly follow us around the house demanding attention.

Of course, we worried about them a lot while we were recently away for more than a week. Though we were exhausted when we got home, we sat on the couch to give Pepper lap, and to let Salt walk back and forth in front of us to be sure we knew she was snubbing us.

And on the way out to get groceries the next morning, I found a dead mouse on our welcome mat. Pocahontas must have missed it in the dark, and I had used a different door. We suspect it was Pepper’s doing — he’s slightly more of a hunter.

They have never left a kill on the mat before. I wonder if the “thought” running through Pepper’s little kitty brain was: “They must have left because I’m bad. Maybe if I’m better, they’ll come back.”

Given that it worked, from his perspective, I wonder if we’ll be coming home to dead rodent every time now.

* Names changed to protect their privacy.