My Boyfriend's Cat

I love creatures. All sizes, all kinds.

So when they don't love me back, it comes as a shock.

Now, okay, the camel kind of makes sense.

Remember him? No? I was on vacation in Egypt, and there were camel rides from the bus parking lot up to the Giza Pyramids. Everyone else was doing it, and honestly, it was either ride or walk in the heat. Mom and Dad hopped on theirs and took off, and there I was, staring at thirteen hundred pounds of spit and loathing under a hundred-thirty pounds of saddle. That camel was having the worst Bad Hump Day I have ever witnessed, and he took it out on me – shuffling, groaning, hissing, stomping, wanting to be anywhere else but near the American chick who dared breathe in the same air space as itself. Feeling was mutual, camel. Why do I remember this? Because when its driver finally let it stop near the Great Pyramid of Khufu, that little batarde whipped around and tried to bite my kneecap off while I was still on him. I slid off the far side and hot-footed it to catch up to my parents while the driver whipped his charge with the reins, and the camel was groan-roaring in return. I didn't look back. Nope, never again. I still think my parents don't believe it happened.

But my boyfriend's cat hating me really threw me for a loop.

I mean, okay, most cats ignore me when boyfriend (now husband) is in the room. He's a freaking cat magnet, and once they get a sniff of him, they're all over him. Literally. I've seen cats in multiple states take one whiff of his sneakers, and they're stuffing their faces as far down to the toe cap as they can and... okay, hey, whoa there, he's taken, all right? No, I don't care that certain distinctions we humans make have no bearing for Subspecies Felinae, but come on, show some restraint!

(Once, a Persian floofball freaking decorated the room we were sleeping in with a huge ball of string while we slept, and when we woke up wondering who let Shelob loose, she prances over with a sock from her “these are my babies” stash and dropped it into hubby's sneaker. The message “I want to have your children” was received loud and clear, but wow was she ticked off when we took pics of her artwork, then dismantled it! That's my hubby, breaking interspecies hearts for five decades.)

Of course, I only learned this over time. Star, on the hand...

He wasn't my boyfriend's cat. No, his sister was the one who brought him home from college. Sis' roommate at college sneaked a cat onto campus, which had kittens. The kittens were given away, but Star was abandoned as the last of the litter. Sis, having none of that crap, brought him home. And Star immediately glommed onto my boyfriend like sis never existed. Star also wasn't thrilled with the narcissistic mommy and the passive-aggressive daddy package deal, and wanted to keep an eye on things.

Star wasn't wrong. Boyfriend's parents were less than spectacular objects of unaffection, the holier-than-thou type you'd rather ignore than have to attempt to get along with for the sake of “family harmony.” Lucky me.

Crazy Friend John was the one that clued me in. CFJ, famed in song and story, can talk to cats, and he claims they talk back. He let me know early on in the relationship that Star would freak out when I finally saw him in person. “Every time I go over there,” he'd exclaim, “Star drags me over to the cellar door and screams at me! 'You don't understand,' he says, 'It is VITALLY IMPORTANT that I get on the other side of this door, and these stupid humans won't let me! You've gotta open the door RIGHT NOW!'” Joke's on all of us, CFJ... when we finally cleaned out that hoarder house after fifty-one freaking years of accumulation, I found the mouse civilization in the basement. They'd turned one of those rolled-up egg crate foam pads into a condo. Did you know mice can foul a habitat so badly that even they can't stand to live there? I didn't, till later. Then they built themselves a Stargate and vanished, taking even the bones of their ancestors with them. Now we know why Star wanted down there in the worst way.

That cellar door's bottom edge had all the veneer worn off on the cellar side. I once asked boyfriend, what the heck, it looks like some monster was clawing to get out! Nope, that was Star, trying to get in. Star's momma had learned in the dorms to stick a paw under the door, and bop against the bottom edge to open them up. Dorms, of course, are not known for their sturdy door nature, so the things were slipshod with a side of crappy construction. The doors barely locked, and the latches was so off kilter that any pressure on the door would pop it open. Somehow mama cat had managed to teach at least this kitten the trick!

I thought our relationship started off well. Star would curl up with my boyfriend while we were on the phone for hours, demanding pettings for the right to hold the receiver with the other hand. Whenever Star heard my voice coming through, he'd get curious, and boyfriend would put the phone to Star's ear – and I'd “meow” at him. I thought I was saying "Hello, let's be friends." He'd get indignant and stalk off, like boyfriend was fraternizing with another cat. How dare he!

Star was also incredibly unimpressed when we finally met in person. Walked in, got a sniff, meh, turned and walked out. Hid behind the sofa and sulked while I made nice with the future nutjobs – er, in-laws. I met Star again when I got ready for bed, and pulled the trundle out from under long-since-flew-the-coop sister's bed, and got a faceful of startled cat. I'm not sure if Star hid there, or anticipatedly laid in wait, but both of us yelped. It was nice that Star helped me find my adrenaline, I'm not sure what I would have done if I'd misplaced it on the journey, but it was rather difficult to relax into sleep after that.

But once “boyfriend” became “husband”... Oh boy.

Boyfriend lived at his parent's house. Boyfriend worked and saved up money for the wedding and marriage and married life. Husband... left. Our apartment didn't allow pets.

It was a while before we returned for a holiday. Six months, in fact. Husband opens the door to be greeted by his parents, there's hugs and back slapping (right in the doorway of course, I had to seriously push my husband out of the way so I could get out of the snowy cold carrying a full set of luggage!), and we finally make our way into the kitchen-

And a black and white streak comes galloping around the corner, aimed for hubby. I swear I heard that cat saying “OMG OMG OMG I heard your voice you're back you're back you're back!”

And I finally get in the room so the door can close. Star screeches to a stop, takes one look at me, says “YOU!” and stalks off.

Well. I felt welcomed, let me tell you.

And thus began The Great En-Stalkening, where Star would try to scare the living beejeebers out of me to prove that hubs should leave me and come home to be with The Cat. When we were allowed our own private room (“too many people visiting, you don't have kids, so you sleep on the pull-out couch in the living room behind the flimsiest privacy curtain we could buy because we're cheapskates and you don't need privacy anyway but I'll get up at six AM to make breakfast with ALL the metal bowls whangity whangity clang and I don't really care if you work second shift”), Star would hide on the trundle bed like always, and leap out when we pulled it out.

I finally had enough, and snuck into the room one afternoon. This in itself was unusual, because when visiting the whackdoodle in-laws, the rule is that We Must All Be In The Same Room At All Times. The only exceptions were for mother-in-law to make meals (we were Not Allowed to help), or when someone needed to facilitate. So I guess I needed to “facilitate” for a while...

I locked the door so Star couldn't run, and I talked. Star listened. I told him that we're married now, and moved hours away, and we wanted to take him with us, but couldn't. And really, why would Star want my husband to move back in with the nutjob parents?

And dangit, that cat understood me! Star wasn't happy, of course, but accepted it, and no longer tried to scare me. Hubs was allowed to pet, but I was not, and we settled into a truce. And when Star's paw would appear under our bedroom door, we'd open up and let him in.

And then I started hearing the stories.

My MIL would blame anyone and anything else for anything going wrong – she was never to blame, of course, it was always, ALWAYS the fault of the idiots she was surrounded with. So the first time she complained about the cat tripping her when she was carrying dishes to the cabinet, I was skeptical. Then it was the coffee pot, then the Tupperware bowl set...

And then I saw something happen. Whatever else we thought or suspected, that cat was dang smart. So when I was sitting, after dinner, in my in-law-chosen Designated Living Room Spot (seriously, they were whackdoodle), I could see the open silverware chest in the hallway to the kitchen. Star jumped up, nudged it just right... and the lid with all those heavy knives SLAMMED down with a mighty SLAM.

Cat vanished in a puff of felinity. Mother-in-law squawks, leaves off washing dishes and stomps into the living room to yell at her husband for doing it! Um, what? He was sitting right here in His Designated Sitting Spot, he had nothing to do with it! “It HAD to be YOU, there's NO ONE ELSE here!” Um, MIL, we're right freaking here in front of you, hello? Also, it was the cat, both husband and I saw it, thank goodness, because husband flatly refused to sit in His Designated Sitting Spot all the way across the room in a hard wooden chair with no cushions, and had chosen to cuddle with me on the slightly more comfortable (but not by much) couch. What was her response to our witnessing the cat? Turns again to her husband and snarls, “Well, then, YOU should have stopped him!” Stomp stomp stomp slam bam crash of dishes being “washed.” And the three of us looking at each other, wondering what the heck kind of insanity just happened. Father-in-law shrugs and goes back to his newspaper (which, he says, was much more interesting than talking to us, but Heaven help us if we leave our Designated Spots). I wonder, not for the first time, what nutjob family I've married into. I also wonder why I think I'm hearing evil chuckling coming from under the sofa.

My answer appeared about a year later. At this point Star relaxed enough to let both me and husband pet her. I had been irrationally yelled at by MIL, and even more so when defending my husband from the same. So Star decided to let me in on the secret, I guess.

Husband and FIL were facilitating, MIL was again washing dishes, and I was stuck alone in Designated Living Room Sitting Spot. (Seriously screwed up people, I'm telling you!) Fine, I can read a book with the best of them. A surprising oasis of calm in the middle of the visit...

I hear gallop-y gallop-y gallop-y, and Star skitters into the room. This is not a skittery cat! And, get this – Star gets down into the dog's “play with me!” pose. Star has never been around dogs in his entire life! I swear, that cat was saying clear as day, “Hey, watch this!!” He galloped off to the kitchen.

Silence.

Silence...

CRASH! BANG!! CLANG! WOBBLE WOBBLE wobble wobble whang whanggg whanggggg...

“AAAAAAAGH YOU DANG CAT!!!!!”

And Star gallops around the corner, screeches to a stop just long enough to look straight at me and say “Heh heh heh!” quite clearly, and scuttles off to hide.

MIL comes charging around the corner, hair and suds flying. “Where did that cat go?” I literally did the emoji I Have No Idea pose, and MIL stomps off to doss the bedroom, where Star usually hides.

I told no one about the evil chuckles emanating from directly below my prodigious tush.

I sat there stunned. I knew what I witnessed, and a few things suddenly became crystal clear:

Star had been doing it deliberately all along.

I thought back to the stories MIL told me about “that darn cat” getting underfoot. Always in the kitchen, never anywhere else. Not where his food bowls were, either. And always after she went after my husband or FIL for no other reason than to shriek at someone. It was an obvious pattern of retaliation, in hindsight.

All the things MIL was holding when Star tripped her? All clean, all things that wouldn't break. The steel coffee pot, the plastic Tupperware, the giant double-walled copper and steel cook pot. The silverware, already contained in their box. All things that would make as much noise as she was making, but harm nothing in their sudden shift from potential to kinetic energy. No glass, which MIL had in metric boatloads, no full pots of food, no pottery, or dirty dishes that could splatter.

And even in the tripping, Star was careful to do it in only one configuration, where the walls were close, so MIL would be able to catch herself but have to drop what she was holding. And that object never dropped on her foot, either. I think Star was performing high-level calculus equations to determine precisely how to perform this tricky maneuver for minimum damage but maximum noise level.

And would hide where they didn't think to look for him, since he “always” hid in the other location. Funny, when husband and I visited, that cat was never in that hiding spot, at any time...

I didn't dare divulge this secret till we were “released” from our Designated Spots to go to bed, and we spent much of the night whispering furiously to each other. Husband didn't believe it at first, but the more I talked and pointed out the discrepancies, the more he thought about the data.

Star as a kitten: sis brought him home, but instead of showing a shred of gratitude, claimed husband as his human. We now think Star took one look at which kid needed a whackdoodle vengeance vector, and latched onto the one still stuck at home.

We showered Star with affection after that, and I did my best to shield FIL and husband from the vitriol. It was dicey, because both or either would throw me under the bus to get MIL's approval. But over time, and many, MANY discussions, husband slowly got better. Once he finally realized there was no way to ever get his parents' approval, he began to gradually grow a thick skin and ignore their insanity. The calmer husband got, the less Star would trip the MIL. Unless she went after FIL, and it would happen again, sure as clockwork.

No, neither of them were ever smart enough to pick up on the change. They just thought Star was getting too old for such shenanigans.

No, Star would reassure us, he was not nearly that old.

We never got to take him with us, but he also decided that staying and tormenting them was more fun anyway.

He lived to a ripe old age, and went out in an uncharacteristically un-Star-like manner: quietly, while the in-laws were being sanctimonious at church.

But we'd known it was coming, and the last trip up before the end, spent a lot of time with him, telling him what an awesome defender he was. He was satisifed; even more so when I took on the defender mantle, Me and Hubs against the Nutjob In-Laws.

I hope Star came back to help out other kids with nutjob parents. I would say I miss him, but there's a ghost cat that likes to step over me at night and curl up in the small of my back. I don't know if it's him, but since our resident narcissist (family, we keep them at arm's length as much as possible, but there are kids involved) is highly allergic to cats (which, according to them, includes an allergy to cat ghosts), I welcome the company.

May you always have such a staunch defender, willing to trip narcissists and make them go CLANG.