Should I have seen the signs? Should the shaved hoo-hah and lack of modesty have tipped me off? Just replace "attacking SUVs with umbrellas" with "insane peeing"; and "Promises rehab" with "crate in the laundry room" and you have yourself the cat version of Britney. It's a full fledged mental collapse. And this time, she may indeed be beyond redemption.
A few days ago I learned the dreadful news that Zane Grey had suddenly and inexplicably renewed her commitment to pee on clothes in my closet. I made it difficult for her, but she found a way. Apparently, as is so often the case, her stint in rehab didn't translate to life in the wider society. Sure, she stuck to her program for the first week or two. But then the slightest thing came along– who knows what– and she was in immediate relapse. I found out the other day when I discovered that, although I was keeping the closet floor scrupulously bare, and the lower shelf totally empty, she had been JUMPING up into a higher shelf in my closet and peeing there! Yes– another batch of clothes out to the trash, more scrubbing, Nature's Miracle, and heart ache. I volleyed back with a cat-deterring mat (in this case, an upside down plastic office chair thingy, with lots of pointy bits that feel bad on little patty paws).
But did that stop the problem? Did keeping her out of the closet completely put an end to the confusion? No, dear reader, it made it worse.
Two nights ago, I was (surprise) exhausted. It was maybe 11 p.m. or so. I climbed into bed, and soon had to get up to change a diaper and resettle the baby. I am accustomed to doing these things in the dark. When I got back into bed five minutes later I felt… yes… wet. A puddle? What? I turned on the light in horror. The cat had peed directly on the bed while I was so briefly out of it. The layers… quilt, blanket, sheet, other sheet, mattress pad, another mattress pad… all soaked. The mattress itself! A dinner-plate-sized peed puddle! Down into the padding!
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
So. I had to wake up Ben (sleeping on the dry side) and dispatch him to sleep with Isaac. Strip the bed of course and carry everything downstairs. Blot the puddle over and over and then massage it with Nature's Miracle (enzyme based cleaner for such things). Take a shower and put on clean pajamas. Relocate baby and me to the guest room, where luckily the bed was already made. And then… you won't be surprised to learn after all this excitement baby was WIDE AWAKE. Yes. For FOUR HOURS.
During those four hours I made my plans about how to capture the cat again, recrate her in the laundry room. And then what? Obviously the program had failed. So what now? How can I ever trust her again? Her little walnut brain is clearly misfiring somehow.
Options:
1) put a cat box in the bedroom closet, where she seems intent on peeing. Thus she modifies our life to suit hers and we have a nuisance to deal with. I don't want the cat box in the bedroom. Yuck. ANd now that she's bed-peeing, it might not even work.
2) keep her trapped in the laundry room from now on. Not workable because we are in and out of there all the time, and she will surely escape.
3) Keep her in the crate for the rest of her life. Like… six or seven years?
4) Find her a new home, in, say, a barn. There she can catch mice and live a reasonably happy cat life. She's spayed, healthy, and has all her claws. If I could find her a nice barn someplace… yes. Yesterday morning I sent out a distress e-mail to several parties who might be able to help. Today I have a few leads.
I caught her and put her in her crate yesterday, and there she sits. She has a new bed in there and of course a cat box and food and water. It's reasonably comfortable as a short-term solution. Loneliness. Yes. I'm sure she's suffering from loneliness. But the reality is that I don't LOVE her enough to see us through this. I don't have that unconditional almost parent-child type love that I do have for Lena dog and I did have for Mr. Cat. She's a fine cat, but this is too much! I've thrown away heaps of clothes, and now am washing piles of bedding, each batch twice with lots of borax. I'm looking into getting a new mattress– I mean, this cat and her whims are costing us money. And inconvenience, and stress, dear god above.
I never imagined that I would be such a fair-weather cat owner. But the relief with which I view being cat-free speaks for itself. How wonderful it would be to simply not have all these worries and additional tasks in my life right now. Things are complicated enough!
She can stay in her crate until I find a nice barn, and until the weather warms up. I would NOT put her scrawny bald ass out in the cold. I still, well, I'm fond of her and I care about her. In the spring, when the tasty birdies are starting to fledge, I hope that a barn will reveal itself to me.