Toilet-Swimmer and Freddy Krueger Cat: The Bane of My Existence.

Cats are some of the most interesting creatures on the planet; defeated only by unicorns... and velociraptors. There's always two kinds of cat owners. There's the ones who say, "Oh my GAWSHH, my cat is SOOO adorable and cute and fuzzy and he sleeps in my lap every day!" On the other hand, there's the people who say "MY CAT IS THE SPAWN OF SATAN. GOD, TAKE HIM AWAY," but secretly, they still love the holy bejeezus out of their cat, and would hurt anyone who tried to take their precious death kitty.

Growing up, I had two cats. There was the Alley Cat that my mother decided would be a great cat to tame. So we had a twenty something pound cat with a smashed in looking face and a meow that sounded like the equivalent to a chain smoker's voice living in our house. Great idea, mom. But hey, I can't complain. He was alright; he let me drag him around the house by his head without hurting me. (I was three, don't judge me.)

So we had Overweight-Butch-Alley-Cat, and this moody, PMS-y princess cat who liked to scratch me whenever she didn't get her way. Gosh, can't an innocent three year old little girl pull her pissy little cat's tail without it giving her a permanent scar right down the middle of her nose? True story... even though you can't really see the scar anymore... Whatever. The difference between Overweight-Butch-Alley-Cat and Kitty-Princess-of-PMS-and-Bitchiness, is that Butch Cat would actually let me drag him by his head. PMS Kitty made this big fuss over everything, just because I might have tried to give her a haircut one or twelve times. Calm yourself, cat, I was just trying to make you beautiful. Don't get me wrong, though, I loved Overweight-Butch-Alley-Cat and Kitty-Princess-of-PMS-and-Bitchiness with all of my little three year old heart. I loved chasing them around and pulling their fuzzy little tails. It was especially fun making them cards and running after the little fluffballs, reading their cards to them, because deep down, I know they truly cared what I had to say.

Don't laugh at me. I was eight or something, there, with my morbidly obese dog, and Kitty-Princess-of-PMS-and-Bitchiness. PMS Kitty loved me that day.

So moving on from my early childhood fluffballs, I'm now going to tell you about my two homicidal muffins on legs just in case you haven't given up on me yet, and you're actually still reading because you and I both know you're loving this entire run-down about all of my cats.

So because of the fact that I was deprived of a fun, playful cat when I was a child (our cats pretty much just slept a lot and then ate food and went back to sleep), I decided I wanted a super fun kitten of playfulness and adorableness and maybe glitter or something. Instead I got Satan kitty. I kid you not, this cat is Freddy Krueger in feline form. Granted, while he was a kitten, he did play a lot. He also destroyed my hands, which ended up looking like they'd gotten stuck in a sinister, diabolical paper shredder. He used his looks to reel me in, and then use his claws and teeth of death to destroy me. I'm now firmly convinced that he's trying to kill me. Just to give you an idea of how big this cat is, I've been told multiple times that Mr. Freddy-Krueger-Adorableness looks like a wolf. He sits under the chair in my room every night and watches me go to sleep. Is that creepy enough for you? If that's not good enough for you, we decided one hell-blazing cat wasn't enough. So we adopted this kitten who likes running into walls, and eating the branches of our Christmas tree when we're not looking. I spent about forty-five minutes one day trying to teach her her name; no success. She stills responds to "refrigerator" and "pickle jar" better than her actual name. So as I was reading Allie Brosh's post "Dog" at Hyperbole and a Half, where she discusses how her dog is most likely mentally retarded, I began to wonder "Is my cat mentally retarded, too?" The answer is yes. I Googled, "How to tell if your cat is retarded," as suggested by Allie Brosh, as well, and looked at some of the possible signs of mental retardation in cats. She shows all of them.

She not only runs into walls, but she also chases her own tail about six hours a day, total, and falls into the toilet. She sleeps on the back of the couch and falls off about five times a day, and trips over her own feet. For a dog, this would all be fairly average behavior, but cats are expected to be more coordinated and behave more intelligently than this. So I have come to the conclusion that my cat is, in fact, at least slightly retarded. I feel bad for her when she runs into the mirror twelve times and then turns around and realizes I'm watching and laughing at her, though, so I humor her and try to make her feel intelligent.

So as the holiday season approaches, we've been decorating our house for Christmas. We have two Christmas trees (don't laugh. I love Christmas more than a five year old does. Maybe) that the cats thoroughly enjoy destroying. We discovered two years ago with Mr. Freddy-Krueger-Adorableness that a tree stand isn't enough to keep our Christmas trees standing. No, instead, we've been forced to use heavy duty rope to tie our trees to the nearest windowsill, or desk, or whatever other sturdy object is readily available for tying rope to. This year, not only do we have to worry about Mr. Freddy-Krueger-Adorableness destroying everything that is good and holy and of baby Jesus and his birthday and all that. We also have Low-IQ-Toilet-Swimming-Tail-Chasing Feline to look out for.

Together, Mr. Freddy-Krueger-Adorableness and Low-IQ-Toilet-Swimming-Tail-Chasing Feline have formed an evil duo whose main goal is to tear apart our Christmas trees in any way possible. Toilet-Swimmer sits on the floor and attempts to eat branches off of the Christmas tree until I chase after her, telling her to stop. Freddy Krueger Cat tries to reach the ornaments that are much higher up on the tree (preferably the extremely fragile ones), and pulls them off so that him and Toilet-Swimmer can chase them around the house until they all end up hidden under the radiators and bookshelves so we have no idea where they are. I swear, I decorated the bottom half of my Christmas tree, too. The cats took it all off...

Somehow, I still love these cats to no end. Why? Because no matter how satanic and irritating and ridiculously stupid they get at some times, they still prove to me that they are far superior and much more intelligent than the majority of the human race.
You're welcome.

UPDATE: Just to clarify, I'm not a crazy cat lady in the making. I only have two cats (Mr. Freddy-Krueger-Adorableness and Low-IQ-Toilet-Swimming-Tail-Chasing Feline). Overweight-Butch-Alley-Cat and Kitty-Princess-of-PMS-and-Bitchiness were my childhood cats... just to clarify.