Nana's Climb

You hear it all the time on the internet: dogs are huge balls of energy that do not make any attempt to hide their love for you, whereas cats are angry fluff balls that act aloof and knock over the glass. Occasionally, cats can be very cute, and this is what makes them popular, but the mentality remains the same: they are regarded as aloof creatures who act like it’s a coincidence that they are always in the same room as you.

Not my cat.

And I’m not talking about my little troublemaker Loki, living up to his name constantly. He keeps me up at night by running around and playing with plastic that he’s inexplicably acquired, though I was sure I threw that out. He’s a sucker for attention too, don’t get me wrong, but he’s also very skittish around new people.

No.

I’m talking about my white, long-haired cat: Nana.

So first, she was my wife’s cat, back before we’d even met. I’m not really sure how old Nana is because my wife doesn’t either. While my wife had to spend some time back in the states, my mother took care of the cat. When I returned from Vancouver, we moved Nana in with me.

Since my wife is a US citizen and I’m Canadian, our relationship is strained by the long-distance. But Nana doesn’t seem to care because she gets all the night-time cuddles from me. She’s been getting much better about allowing Loki to cuddle me at night too, though it took a while for him to warm up to me anyway.

With my wife currently in Minnesota, and me in Canada the house was mostly empty during the week when I was working a full-time job. Before she had to go back, my wife told me that Nana would often meow at the front door for about half an hour after I left every morning. Thus, whenever I actually found myself trying to work on my career in my office, you can bet both cats would be in there with me.

They must really like to help me work.

Since being a writer and working as customer service rep are very sedentary jobs, I’ve gotten to experience some mild back pains from sitting down all day. At a certain point, I found myself shopping for a standing desk, because I’ve heard it’s better for your back. I settled on a plastic shelf unit from Canadian Tire. You might know the ones: black, four levels, put together without any tools. It was cheap and I could only put one monitor on top, but it was still a decent start and I sure as hell wasn’t going to spend upwards of two hundred dollars for a small standing desk.

I had my other desk set up beside the standing one, so I could have a place for my papers, printer, etc. If you’ve ever closed the office door to keep your pets out, you know that they whine and scratch at the door just to get to you. I know I shouldn’t, but every time I try to, I relent and let them in. At a certain point, I stopped trying to keep them out. As such, the cats were always up on my desk, trying to get me to pick them up and carry them on my shoulders.

Nana is particularly bad for this. And sure, I shouldn’t give in, but I can work one-handed sometimes, and she weights less than two pounds, so I would carry her on my shoulder for a bit while I do some work. Eventually, my arm would get tired, so I put her on my shoulder like a parrot. So long as I didn’t move my shoulders much, she would just sit there for a while.

There’s also the problem that, when I did sit at a chair, they would fight for who got to sit on the back of the chair. Nana always prefers my lap, but sometimes beggars can’t be choosers. The point that I’m trying to make here is that Nana likes and has gotten used to climbing onto my shoulders, and the fact that I’m working on my reviews, or my scripts does not stop her from trying to get my attention.

So much so that I was working one day, standing at my desk, back to the door, and she leaps up from behind me to get onto my shoulders.

To add insult to injury, it had been a while since I cut her nails. As a result, I can feel the tiny claws of my desperate cat. Of course, I shouted obscenities because I was completely caught off guard, not paying any attention, and humming along to my music, when I suddenly feel this sharp pain in my back, climbing up onto my shoulders.

I’m almost six feet tall and this cat, who we’re pretty sure is over ten years old, was so needy and so determined that she jumped almost six times her height and sunk her claws into me just to get to her “rightful place” on my shoulder.

Needless to say, I went back to using a sitting desk.