As it turns out, Pippin fancies himself a Guard Cat. Sure, he spends a lot of time sleeping, er, Lulling Them Into a False Sense of Security, but when he feels you’ve overstepped your bounds he will take decisive action. Impotent, claw-less action, but decisive.

When I’m up and about and generally feeling pretty good, he greets people who enter the house with interest and high hopes for belly rubs. When I’m feeling crummy, though, watch out. He may just hiss and swat at you, attempt to bar your entry from the house, and even refuse treats in service of his mission to rain displeasure on your head and convince you to beat a hasty retreat from whence you came.

One of my (many) favorite scenes from Animals are Beautiful People features a meerkat trying desperately to figure out how to get at the good stuff on the inside of an egg.

I thought of that scene this morning when I gave my cat his new treat dispensing toy, complete with 4 of his very favorite treats inside. He realized that there was something very important in the fact that he’d seen me stuff those four treats into the nasty hard thing. Very important indeed. Maybe if he yelled at it (and at me) the treats would appear before him… No dice.

I batted it for him a couple of times, letting out one treat. He thought that was awesome. Then I walked away. He was puzzled. He knew there were more treats in there, but I’d left, so now what?

Stealthily, wondering if he was allowed to do this on his own, he batted tentatively at the toy. Nothing. He tried licking it. Nothing. He tried sitting on it. Nothing. Maybe if he tried licking it harder… this time with some biting action? No. Hmmm….

SWAT

And out came a treat, much to his surprise and delight.

When I left for work, he was carefully keeping his back to me so that I couldn’t scold him in case he was being naughty, and he was batting the toy around the kitchen wondering exactly what he’d done that last time to make the glorious treat appear.

I wonder how many times people look at me and see instantly that I’m licking at the problem when I should be batting at it.

My cat is a talkative guy. It’s a good thing he’s got a relatively soft voice because he uses it all the time. When he’s not in the same room as me, or if he’s uncertain about things, he often narrates his explorations in the form of short quiet meows that my family has dubbed “sonar.” He’s clearly talking to me, and he seems to like it if I occasionally respond with a “hi buddy” so he knows I’m still around. (Yes, I confess: I talk to my cat.)

This sonaring seems irresistible. He even does it when silence would be by far the preferable action. For example, while exploring the downstairs of my parents’ house — the portion of the house where the dog is — the dog that would dearly love to see if cat really is as tasty as she thinks it must be. If the cat would just go silently, he’d get a lot more time in exploring before the dog realized what was up and gave chase. But no. Sonar is apparently required.

It really got him into trouble last weekend. I was packing up and getting ready to leave my parents’ house, and the cat knew exactly what was up and predicted with great accuracy the impending stuffing-in-cat-carrier and riding-in-car that was coming up. So, like any good cat, he hid. And usually I can find him really easily because I know the places he hides, but this time I couldn’t locate him. I checked behind the bed, under the bed (three times), in the closet, under the dresser, in the linen closet, back to the bedroom closet, behind the bed again… and apparently the cat got more and more worried as he saw all this from his vantage point under the bed (remember, I’d checked there! Sigh.).

And as he got more and more worried, he did as he always does when he’s worried: he activated his sonar mechanism.

At first it was so quiet that I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but I answered him, so he sonared again, so I answered him. And little by little, I honed in on the under-the-bed region, and there he was.

He looked so unhappy that I’d found him.

Every once in a while, Ira Glass interrupts himself on This American Life to say something like “Now, we should note that the next story may not be suitable for all audiences. There’s nothing graphic or anything, but it does acknowledge the existence of sex.” These warnings always make me smile. Tere’s a whole lot of ground between “existence” and “graphic,” so the notice feels more like a wink and a nudge than a warning. And if I’m bothered by the existence of sex, it’s too late now to back up and unhear the warning.

Well, since I’m still laid up with the aftermath of the flu and desperately in need of something to do that doesn’t require moving, or even sitting up, I thought I’d write a little. But the thing that popped into my head to write about is one that triggers an Ira Glassian warning in my head every time I mentally compose the post.

There. Consider yourself warned.

Oh, and for those of you who don’t know, Pippin is a cat. I feel that this could be an important piece of context before we proceed.

Without further ado…

Twice a day, Pippin claims me as his own property — once in the morning and once after work. It started innocently enough. At first, he’d follow me solemnly into the bathroom and sniff my folded hands as I sat on the toilet. Then one day he gently and deliberately rubbed each of his whiskered cheeks against those folded hands. Apparently, this exercised pleased him. The next time we met there in the bathroom, he was much more insistent and thorough in his marking. He applied multiple layers of scent to each hand, stopped to sniff his handiwork, and then reapplied scent where needed.

That was all well and good. Cute, even. But then simple cheek-rubbing stopped being sufficient for the job. Why stop with scent glands when you can add saliva? And so, little by little, he started rubbing his whiskered cheeks and his teeth repeatedly against each clasped hand. And then he started licking and gnawing in between scent applications, and his nose-nuzzling became downright aggressive.

He also became increasingly impatient for me to sit down to be marked. It used to be that when I got home from work he’d flop onto his back and request a belly rub. Now he precedes me emphatically down the hall to the bathroom, where I’m expected to follow regardless of need, it seems. And if I do follow, he sometimes rears up on his hind legs to begin the process before I even sit down.  On the rare occasion that he’s otherwise occupied and doesn’t notice when I wake up in the morning, he’ll come running from whatever corner of the house he’s been exploring, meowing loudly to let me know he’s coming. “I’m here! Wait up!! Sorry I’m late!”

I suppose this particular reaffirmation of willingness to be companions might get old eventually, but as long as he doesn’t progress to blood drawing I think the odd ritual can continue. If nothing else, it gives me a story to tell that requires a Glassian warning, which makes the whole thing doubly amusing.