I know it is seven o’clock in the evening for two reasons. First, the ambient light in my apartment has softened. The light now has a faint blue tint instead of the strong yellow-red of late afternoon. I enjoy the twilight, especially when the sun’s last rays slip through my Venetian blinds to illuminate the smoke curling from the tip of my clove cigar. Okay, it’s not really a cigar. It’s a cigarette, but since President Obama passed legislation last summer outlawing all flavors in cigarettes except menthol (which, coincidentally, he smokes), cloves have had to call themselves flavored cigars to abide by the law.
I know it is seven o’clock because of the light, yes, but there’s also a more tactile reminder. My cat, Miss Meowmers, is brushing past my leg while I try to read Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. I need to read Leaves of Grass for my comprehensive exams – the tests which will prove that I’m qualified to teach English majors about 19th and 20th century American and British literatures, as well as modern poetry. I’m trying to read because I’d rather be doing just about anything than reading Walt Whitman. He’s profound at times, yes, but he’s more often a self-contradicting gasbag.
If I were immersed in this book of poetry, Miss Meowmers would still be able to get my attention. She’s a smart cat and my feedback has taught her which tricks work on me and which don’t. Most every time she brushes past my leg, I stop what I’m doing, reach down, and pet her. Sometimes I’ll even sing to her. I’ve told her by reinforcement that if she wants me to pet her, all she needs to do is brush past me. If she wants me to pick her up, all she needs to do is put her paws on my knees and meow. If she wants me to scratch behind her ears, all she needs to do is ram her head into my hand until I get the hint. If I were immersed in Leaves of Grass, she could get my attention. But I’m not. This is bad news.
Right now, she is hungry. And she knows that if she pesters me long enough, I’ll feed her. I’m a little annoyed with Miss Meowmers. I feed her at 7:30 every evening, but lately she’s been trying to move feeding time back. At first she’d start pestering me around 7:25. Then it was 7:20. Then 7:15. How we got to this song and dance at 7:00 is still a mystery to me, but I refuse to let it work. As she brushes against my leg, I resolve to ignore her. I don’t say, “Hello, Miss Meowmers!” I don’t pet her. I don’t even look away from Whitman’s lines, even though I’d rather scrape the gunk from between my bathroom floor tiles than keep reading.
My cat walks back to the bedroom we share and I manage to read a few more pages of poetry. As I ponder the words “I sing the body electric,” however, I hear a meow. Miss Meowmers has upped the ante. Since her first trick didn’t work, she’s moved on to an attention-grabbing technique which more often yields results. The reason she doesn’t caterwaul first, however, is that the results aren’t always pleasant. Sometimes I meow with her and we have a conversation. I wonder what she hears. Sometimes I pick her up and then crush her beneath me to annoy her back. So because the results are unknown, Miss Meowmers doesn’t try to get my attention this way first. I continue to ignore her. She returns to the bedroom. It is now 7:15, and I have still only managed to read “I sing the body electric.”
After a few minutes where my eyes drift aimlessly over the page, I feel a sharp but mild pain in my the small of my back. My cat has decided to use her second most desperate maneuver to get my attention: claws. If she were somebody else’s cat, that person probably wouldn’t have felt much pain because she wouldn’t have had much claw with which to paw me. But I feel guilty every time I trim her claws because she gives me such hell. She acts like I’m killing her slowly whenever I try to snip the ends of her nails. That’s why I only end up doing it about twice a year. So, where most cats have tiny little nubbins, my cat has something more like the talons those raptors were sporting in Jurassic Park.
I whip around and yell “Ow!” My cat zips towards the bedroom door, but stops right before it to see what I’m planning to do. If I stand up, she will wait until she gets a sense whether I’m mad or resigned before she moves again. If I continue to sit in the chair, failing to read Walt Whitman, she will resort to her last, most desperate maneuver. It is now 7:20, and I have not read anything beyond “I sing the body electric.” I have, in a moment of terrifying clarity, realized that I will never finish this poem, much less my reading list, by early 2011.
I try to read. I do. I swear. It’s just really hard to pay attention to this book. It’s too hot outside, it’s too comfortable inside. I need it to be a little less comfortable to get work done inside, and I need it to be a lot more comfortable to even try to do anything outside. I doubt this explanation will work with the Director of Graduate Studies.
It is at this point that I hear the noise I hate the most: a three-second long MIDI of a small bird chirping. It loops, and will continue to contaminate my apartment until I take care of my cat’s demand for food. The sound comes from a toy I bought my cat three weeks ago. It’s a little stuffed bird, about the size of a finch, that she bats around. Whenever she hits it, the bird makes this noise. My cat likes to hit it for fun, sure, but she likes to hit it more at, say, 5:30 in the morning or 7:30 at night, when she wants to be fed.
There’s no ignoring this noise. My cat wins. I sigh, get up, and walk from my understuffed dining room chair to the white plastic shelves I’ve decided will be a makeshift pantry. I stoop over and grab a small round tin from the bottom shelf. The can is about the diameter of a tennis ball, and my cat knows what this can means. She cocks her head to the side and drops the bird she’s been shaking around. When I open the can, she jumps off her haunches, runs over, and starts meowing at me. I walk into my bedroom, tip the can over, and pour the wet slop my cat so adores into her bowl.
This is how I feed my cat.
Posted by bryteline 
