I’m really not sure how cat hoarders do it. I can barely walk across the kitchen without tripping over a cat. I’m not sure how I’d manage it if I had 20. Three is bad enough.
It doesn’t matter where I want to put my feet, there is a cat already darting into position to trip me up. There’s nowhere to sit in the living room. The recliner, sofa and rocking chair have all been taken by a cat. The only reason I can sleep at night without a cat sleeping on my head is because our bedroom is a cat-free zone. Some days, I curl up on the floor of my office with Ben, just to take a nap without cats claiming the real estate.
It wasn’t always like this. We’ve had cats before, but only two at a time. Somehow going from two cats to three feels like an exponential increase. Granted, our previous cats were indoor-outdoor cats. So, at least part of the time the house only had one cat, or sometimes no cats in it.
Our previous cats weren’t the killers these cats are, though. They caught mice and moles, but the bunnies and birds were relatively safe. Or if they weren’t, I didn’t know about it.
Back when we had only two cats, along with us two humans, we also had four dogs. Somehow, four dogs and two humans balanced out two cats. We outnumbered them. But in terms of psychic energy, it takes quite a few dogs and humans to balance one cat. With just two humans and one old dog in the house now we are greatly outnumbered by these three cats.
Ben now prefers to sleep in the dining room at night, but the other night he started barking around 2 a.m. I couldn’t tell whether it was a “I have to go out” bark, or a “Get this cat away from me” bark, or an “I’m lonely” bark, so I got up to investigate. He came to greet me in the living room, looking like he just wanted company. I decided to sleep on the couch until he fell back asleep, but there was a cat sleeping right in the middle of it. Another cat had claimed the recliner. I didn’t bother to look for the third. He was probably sleeping on Ben’s bed in the dining room.
I booted the cat off the couch and laid down. Ben curled up on the floor beside me. In seconds, I was smothered in cats. One kneaded my hip, claws fully extended, to get it soft enough to curl up on. One burrowed under my chin. The third lay on the arm of the couch and thumped his tail rhythmically against my face.
Grumbling loudly, I sat up and tossed cats everywhere. It looked like it was going to be a very long night, but as Ben drifted off to sleep, only one cat came back. And he had the good grace to curl up behind my knees and keep my legs warm.
I listened to Ben’s breathing grow steady and deep before I snuck back to my own bed. I have only a little time left with him, so I’m happy to get up in the middle of the night to sit with him when he is restless. Still, I keep telling the other human in the house that when Ben is gone, it’s going to take a lot of dogs to balance out the cats in this house. At least four or five, I think.
Priscilla Berggren-Thomas is a retired librarian. Along with Raised by Wolves, she writes a (sort of) weekly newsletter about the oddities of living entitled UnSupervisable. Subscriptions are free at https://priscillaberggrenthomas.substack.com/.
