cats

The TAIL Tax

~ msnarky ~ Leave a comment

Story 36 of 52

By M. Snarky

BANG-BANG-BANG! – down came the gavel with an overly enthusiastic force during the last legislative session of the year. “H. R. 11,776 2050, the TAIL (Taxing Animal’s Innate Look) Tax has passed with a supermajority vote; this session is adjourned.” And just like that, another expensive, intrusive new tax was imposed upon the people virtually out of thin air, and the formerly considered untouchable direct taxation upon people’s pets was quickly – even eagerly – signed into law by the president. These legislators have zero restraint and are perpetually scheming for new taxes needed to continue funding the ever-expanding Government Industrial Complex, which, by 2050, knows no boundaries. And so, the giant sucking maw of government greed, power, and corruption continued unabated.

As the dissenting nay voters stormed out of the chamber, the minority leader by the name of O’Keefe verbally warned his colleagues, “The citizens of this country will not tolerate this egregious, pernicious, and arbitrary tax on their beloved pets. We should be voting to repeal taxes like this instead of creating new ones! This TAIL tax will be the final straw, and the people will not tolerate it – mark my words!”

The TAIL tax law went into effect on January 1, 2051, and was retroactive for the 2050 tax year.

Unfortunately, this new TAIL tax did not really surprise anyone, after all, by 2049 everything else had already been levied a tax. People were now paying taxes on everything consumable (the list of which is too long and tedious to put down here, but believe me when I say everything), plus other ridiculous taxes like a personal carbon footprint tax as assessed by how much CO2 gas a person emits while breathing, how much rainwater and sunlight falls on their property, how many miles they drive, a per square toilet paper tax (that always spikes during cold and flu season), a keyboard keystroke tax (which always spikes during a breaking news story), a per-email tax, social media account taxes, a bodyweight tax (which is always up and down), a carbohydrate tax, condom tax, per brick tax, phone minute use tax, ice cube tax, firewood tax, a plant and garden tax, grass clipping tax, yard trimming tax, a per tooth tax (rumored to have triggered a massive spike in tooth extractions), fingernail and toenail trimmings taxes, earwax tax, haircut tax, dog poop tax, cat poop tax, human poop tax, toilet tax, fork, spoon, and knife taxes, a sleep tax, a snore tax, flatulence tax (which always spikes on Cinco de Mayo), a per-page book tax, a sporting goods tax, a facial hair tax (both men and women – because equality!) the full list of absurd taxes just goes on and on – let your imagination run wild and you’ll be right! The tax rate was already approaching 80% and rising, mostly to pay for the ever-expanding $100 trillion-dollar federal debt.

In essence, the politicians were perpetually scheming and engaging in financially punishing people simply for being human in order to fund the out-of-control government spending. Absolutely nothing was sacred anymore (not that anything ever actually was sacred to begin with, in the literal term anyway). The government even forced people to install cameras and toilet seat sensors and all manner of environmental sensors in and around their homes and yards and in their cars and trucks to track all of this stuff, all at the taxpayers’ expense, of course.

Naturally, many of the tax revenue estimates made by the bureaucracy in Washington DC were entirely wrong, hence the ongoing assault on the taxpayer for more and more of their money, after all, someone has to pay for all of the “free” stuff doled out by the government. Sadly, the people were complicit; they had capitulated because they would rather stay out of a dark, dank federal prison and enjoy what little liberty and freedom and money that they had left on the outside than to rebel against it and end up on the inside of one. All of the politicians knew this, and they used it to their maximum advantage.

Filing the tax returns for all of these new taxes not only costs far more money, it takes four times as much time – proving once again that the government doesn’t care about using up your time as they see fit – but also the punitive punishment administered by the government for getting it wrong will directly result in the seizing of all assets plus jail time, so people are always in fear of an audit. Nowadays, there are more heart attacks during tax season than there are during daylight savings time changes in the spring and the fall, the previous recordholders. “Death by a thousand taxes,” was no longer just a metaphor.

When Mark Armstrong heard the news about this new TAIL tax, he dropped his cup of coffee onto the floor, which made all of his half-dozen or so rescue dogs and cats temporarily scatter from the kitchen where he was standing. As Mark was cleaning up the mess, his pets slowly started returning to the kitchen to see what was going on, and his favorite Pomeranian, Zea, started licking up the whiskey-tinged coffee from the floor. “Don’t’ worry guys,” Mark said to his beloved pets, “I’ll figure out a way to come up with the extra TAIL Tax money.”

Then he stood up and looked out of the kitchen window across the expanse of his hilly, tree studded, hundred-acre property located somewhere east of Podunk where he had other rescue dogs and cats housed in his barn and outbuildings all living very comfortable lives. There were about twenty-five dogs and cats in all. This new TAIL Tax was going to cost him thousands of extra dollars per year – money that he simply didn’t have – which would ultimately bankrupt him. Unfortunately, Mark was a retiree on a pension that he was barely scraping by on, and any new expense – especially involuntary ones imposed by the government – were an absolute threat to his livelihood. He bristled at the thought of another new, unfair, idiotic tax.

Mark also felt deeply in his heart that the government had gone too far this time, and he simply was not going to take it sitting down – he was not going to go along with this death by ten-thousand taxes madness imposed upon the people by the faceless, heartless, mindless bureaucrats in DC. In fact, an intense feeling of rebellion began to swell up in him; one that he could not suppress – he determined at that moment that the time for a tax war had come. But before engaging in a battle with the federal government Leviathan, he wisely decided to check into the language of the new law so that he could better develop some rules for engagement.

Notably, “A $50 per inch annual TAIL tax will be assessed on any cat or dog living within the household, the length of which shall be measured from the anus to the tip of the tail, including the fur, rounding up to the next one-quarter of an inch. All farm animals will be excluded.”  He did some quick math in his head; this new TAIL tax was going to cost him approximately $30K per year, and there was no way he could pay it. Then he had a dark thought cross his mind that maybe this law was not really about a new tax, rather, it was a law designed to allow for more civil asset forfeitures because people won’t be able to pay their tax bills, giving the government more ownership and control over private property. This thought sent a chill down his spine, and he was not going to give up his ranch without a fight, even if it killed him.

From reading the entire text of the new law, Mark ascertained the following items which he could use in his TAIL Tax war:

  1. The government was clearly attempting to also get a headcount of the dogs and cats that were living amongst the population, most likely for another tax scheme. Mark reasoned to himself, “And this is why I never fill out the census: The government will use the information provided against me.”
  2. The term(s) of “within the household,” were not clarified, so there was a gray area for an indoor/outdoor pet, like a cat, for example, and whether there was an exemption for a pet that spent more time outdoors than indoors.
  3. Specific language for dogs and cats not living “within the household” was missing from the law entirely, either by design or possibly by mistake, leaving room for interpretation.
  4. There was no language included in the text of the law preventing tail docking or caudectomy, vis-à-vis, removal of the tail, and although this would be an extreme tax avoidance measure, certainly, some people would do it.
  5. There was also some darker text within the law that enraged Mark: “Any citizen that underreports the headcount of the pets living within the household will be fined $50,000 and sentenced to a mandatory minimum of 6–months in jail, and the pets intentionally excluded from the tax return will be taken into custody and a fine of $100 per day will be assessed. At 90-days, if the fine is not paid in full, the animal in question will be destroyed. Financing options are available.”

“Those greedy, immoral, power-hungry bastards! ‘Pay us, or the dog gets it?’  It is now painfully obvious that the government will never stop their assault on the taxpayers unless we force them to stop! Guys: We must be the tip of the spear!” Mark exclaimed to his audience of house pets.

Mark sent a letter to his congressman, eloquently explaining his financial situation and how the TAIL tax was going to bankrupt him. There was no reply.

Mark sent a letter to the President, eloquently explaining his financial situation and how the TAIL tax was going to force him to sell his property. There was no reply.

Mark emailed the local news station, eloquently explaining the financial implications and how the TAIL tax was going to bankrupt many people. There was no reply.

Fuming over being ignored by the politicians and the media and facing financial ruin, Mark decided to make a TikTok video using clips of his rescue animals and house pets and explaining the TAIL tax law and how it allowed for the government to seize and destroy peoples pets and levy heavy fines against them, and it must be stopped by any means. This, fortunately, got the people’s attention. On day 1, he got a hundred views. By day 3, there were 10,000 views. By the end of the week, the video had reached 1,000,000 views and followers. The word was getting out. Zea was the new darling of the Internet. The politicians were getting flooded with phone calls, letters, and emails demanding them to repeal the TAIL tax. They did not budge.

In one protest, a few dozen people dumped a truckload of fake animal tails in front of the White House while holding up a banner that said, “NO TAIL TAX!” The crude, ineloquent message hinted that the people would cut off their pets tails in rebellion to avoid the new tax. This only got national news coverage after the capitol police arrived in force in full riot gear and started bashing the heads of the peaceful protesters.

The TikTok video also got the unwanted attention of someone in power in DC who directed the IRS to audit the last 6-years of Mark’s tax returns and to scrutinize them, “Microscopically.” This was the sort of audit that everyone feared. The kind of audit that nobody could survive with the relentless requests for all manner of obscure receipts, bank records, cleared checks, savings and checking account activity, cryptocurrency accounts and activity, stock trading accounts and activity, non-profit donation receipts, gifts, inheritances, lottery winnings, medical expenses, home improvement expenses, ad infinitum. I was clear that Mark was being targeted by the government, and there was no doubt that they would surely find something. They always do.

Early one morning, just before dawn, the rescue dogs in the barn and outbuildings began barking fiercely, waking Mark up. He got out of bed, grabbed his 12-gauge pump shotgun, which, living on a ranch with bears in the vicinity, was per the usual, walked out into the living room, and peered out of the big front window. He did not notice anything unusual. On his way to the kitchen from the living room to make some coffee, he heard a strange buzzing sound coming from the outside of the house near the back door where the electrical panel was located. He thought there might be an electrical problem, so he opened the back door to go outside and check it out – and there he was met with a large, matte black drone hovering at eye-level, just beyond the wraparound porch, which not only startled him, but it also triggered a split-second defensive response that resulted in the immediate disassembly of said large, matte black drone via a 12-gauge 00 shotgun blast from the hip. After years of collecting and shooting firearms, Mark was an expert marksman and new a few trick shots.

Mark walked over to the wreckage to investigate. There, on what remained of the matte black carbon fiber fuselage that housed the NiCad batteries, hard drive, HD camera, and circuit boards, was the unmistakable logo of the FBI. He took a video clip of it with his phone. At that precise moment, Mark knew that it was going to be a very long day. With the phone video camera still rolling and the sun rising, he discharged a point-blank 00 shotgun blast into the heart of the electronics. Blown to smithereens was an understatement. He looked into his camera, shook his head, stopped the video, and went back inside the house to finish making his coffee and also to prepare for the imminent battle. He reviewed surveillance video from around the ranch and saw that there were a half-dozen black SUV’s plus an armored personnel vehicle at the front gate. “They must have found something really bad in my tax returns,” he said to Zea. He called a lawyer friend.

“Well, Mark, you certainly have them on failing to provide due process, but they are definitely not going to back down now. They will label you as an unpatriotic tax evader and claim that you started the hostilities, destroyed government property, falsified your tax returns, and they will find a way to escalate until you leave the house feet-first in a body bag. Remember what happed in Waco; your house may ‘accidentally’ catch on fire. Unfortunately, today may be your last one. I advise that you take to your TikTok followers and tell the story as it unfolds. I’ll call the media.”

The commanding FBI agent named Johnson who was watching the live HD video feed from the drone camera as it got blasted out of the sky was not amused. “Do you not understand what the meaning of ‘stealth’ is!” he snapped at the drone pilot, who quickly replied, “You saw what happened – that guy’s reflexes were unbelievable – I had zero time to respond!” “Well, now that the stealth surveillance tactic has been compromised, we’ll have to give Mr. Armstrong a courtesy call and allow him to surrender peacefully,” said Johnson to his colleagues.

Mark’s phone rang with “This is the FBI” displayed as the caller ID without a phone number. He started his live TikTok app and answered the phone in hands-free mode. “Hello FBI, this is Mark Armstrong, I’ve been expecting your call. Fair warning: you are being streamed live in front of a million plus TikTok followers.” There was an awkward moment of silence, and Mark thought that he heard a few muffled expletives before agent Johnson responded, in a calm voice, “Mr. Armstrong, it appears that we may have started off on the wrong foot this morning. You see, you’ve been indicted for tax evasion, and we have a federal warrant for your arrest, and we were simply using the drone to determine if it was safe to send up some agents to take you into custody. But now that you shot it down, not only have you committed another serious federal crime you have also escalated the situation with your hostility.” “Hostility? I’m no threat to anyone, Agent Johnson, and you could have just used the intercom button at the gate – I would have let you in. But now I am in fear for my life after seeing that drone spying on me.” “Mr. Armstrong, are you saying that you are not going to surrender to the FBI?” “Surrender to some trumped up charges brought on by some greedy, bloated, ham-fisted politicians in Washington because I informed the public about the ugly truth of the money grabbing TAIL tax? This is absolute tyranny and likely a death warrant based on the FBI’s infamous history of bungling these sorts of things. I’ll need to consider my options, Agent Johnson.” and with that, Mark hung up the phone. The TikTok live stream responses were blowing up.

Mark addressed his TikTok followers, “Friends; I really don’t want to die today, but the FBI is probably going to raid my house at some point and ‘accidentally’ kill me, so I’m going to leave this live stream on, and you can watch how the events unfold in real time.” He plugged his phone into the charger, set his phone on a stand, put the stand on a table, and aimed the camera with the front window and front door of the house in the field of view. That’s when the power went out. Mark got back in front of his phone and told his audience that the FBI had just cut his power, but he had several fully charged battery banks for his phone to keep the live stream going.

Although Mark was on high alert and flinching at every sound he heard outside of the house, the rest of the day was uneventful, perhaps indicating that the feds were planning for something after nightfall.

Sure enough, just after sunset, the dogs outside started barking again. Mark looked out of the front window to see a small tactical robot rolling up the driveway in the twilight. He grabbed his phone and showed his live stream audience what was happening – which had grown to over 3-million viewers – and said, “Looks like they sent up a robot TAIL tax collector! I don’t know what is going to happen next, but please pray for me and my pets!” And at that very moment, his phone displayed, “Lost Internet Connectivity.” Now the FBI was blocking his 5G signal. Mark found himself completely cut off from the grid. He sipped his cold, whiskey laden coffee in the dark.

As the dogs continued barking excitedly in the darkness, and as Mark continued to observe the tactical robot closing in on his front porch (he had already assumed that it had some sort of fatal explosive or incendiary payload, or other armament intended to kill him), suddenly, from the back of the house, there were headlights shining in through the back door window. Mark assumed that it was the FBI driving in with the armored personnel carrier, coming in from the old, mostly unused back gate that was overgrown with black walnut trees and was only accessible by an old unmapped dirt fire road that ran along the back of the property.

He picked up Zea, who was also barking, and went to the back door window to see what was happening, halfway expecting to take a bullet to the head. That’s when he saw the endless stream of cars and news vans and pickup trucks rolling in with huge American and Gadsden flags abundantly displayed. Then he heard the horns honking. Then he saw droves of people walking in with flashlights and their dogs. The cars and trucks and people began surrounding his house. Someone yelled out from a bullhorn, “MARK ARMSTRONG – YOUR CAVALRY IS HERE!”

In that moment, FBI Agent Johnson realized that he missed seeing the back gate of the property during his earlier recon using satellite images, and this error might cost him his job. He also couldn’t believe what he was witnessing through the HD camera on the tactical robot: The people surrounded it and started chanting, “USA-USA-USA!” while pumping their fists in the air. Johnson lamented to his team, “Dammit! We’re done, boys. Pack it up!” And with that order, the tactical robot operator began backing it down the driveway, slowly, all the while the growing crowd of people escorted it to the gate.

The lights on the property suddenly came back on. Mark’s phone rang with the same, “This is the FBI” caller ID with no phone number. “Armstrong; this is Agent Johnson. It appears that you have a lot of friends supporting you. We’re going to disengage and leave now, and best of luck to you.” Mark replied, “Agent Johnson, why don’t you come up to the house for a dram of whiskey, you know, as a peace offering?” “Thanks, Mark, but I’m on duty. Besides, I don’t like big, potentially hostile, anti-law enforcement crowds. By the way, I was on your side the entire time, but I have orders to follow.” And with that, Agent Johnson ended the call, and the convoy of FBI vehicles drove off into the inky black night.

It became known as the “Wag-the-Tax Revolution.” The media reports said that 5,000 people came to stand with Mark. The FBI said that it was only 500. There was a subsequent anti TAIL tax march on Washington where it was estimated that 5-million people showed up with their beloved, well behaved pets. Mark and Zea became folk heroes and made the usual media appearances. Mark wrote a bestselling book about it. Zea became a well-paid spokesdog for a national dogfood brand.

The pushback against the TAIL tax was so intense across the nation, that every single legislator who voted for it got voted out of office. Thousands of arcane tax laws and anti-liberty and anti-freedom laws were repealed. The size and scope and power and expense of the government was reduced to a point where nobody really noticed it anymore, as it should have been all along.

The people flourished with the additional freedom and liberty, and with the heavy tax burden lifted off of their backs, they had more money in their pockets to put to use for their own personal version of the pursuit of happiness.

And they lived happily ever-after.

Instagram: @m.snarky

Blog: https://msnarky.com

©2025. All rights reserved.

A Rescue Cat Named Cheeto: Domestic Terrorist

~ msnarky ~ 2 Comments

Story 7 of 52

By M. Snarky

“Oh, honey; look how cute he is!” said my wife, Kim, while pushing her phone into my face with a picture of a small, softball sized fluffy orange hairball. “He’s a rescue cat from Palm Springs named Cheeto that was found in a hole in the desert. He’s already been neutered, and he needs a home; can we adopt him?” A rescue cat with a backstory posted on the Internet looking for a nice suburban home to move into already sounded dubious to me. Also, she asked as if she needed my permission for anything – Kim is going to do what Kim wants to do anyway, especially when it comes to cats. She grew up with cats and so I knew that it really was only a matter of time before she got what she wanted. My cat-free days were numbered.

Kim started scrolling through the plethora of pictures of Cheeto-the-homeless-feral-long-haired-orange-tabby-kitten-found-in-a-hole-in-the-Palm-Springs-desert like he was some A-List celebrity. “Awe, look at him sleeping!” She turned her phone toward me again. I really couldn’t make out his head from his tail and it reminded me of a furry creature from a Star Trek episode titled, The Trouble with Tribbles. Yes, he was undeniably cute. No, I didn’t want to adopt him or any other cat for that matter because it would interfere with my scheme to eventually be a pet-free household so we could travel the world extensively without worrying about any animals back at home.

“I miss not having a cat and Bagheera has been gone for 4-years now.” Bagheera was a fluffy black cat that had lived an indoor life of ultimate leisure with us for 17-years and was from a litter of kittens from another rescue cat named Avalon that Kim “found” wandering around the neighborhood. I sensed a pattern here. “Besides, Sydney needs a playmate.” Sydney is an Aussie-Doodle dog that Kim also “found” on the Internet.

Kim met up with an anonymous woman – who I was sure was a typical low-level Internet con artist – at a local park. Kim got the dog, and our bank account took an unexpected four-figure hit. Easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission, I suppose. Oh, and no documentation for the dog to prove her pedigree or vaccinations…not even a paper receipt for the cash transaction. I’m sure the anonymous dog peddling woman claimed the cash as income on her 2018 federal tax return.

And so, this is how Kim set me up for the Cheeto trap…

“We can drive down to Palm Springs on Sunday and have a nice lunch and Mai Tai’s at the Tommy Bahama Marlin Bar on the strip, then we’ll go over to meet Cheeto. If we like him, we can take him home.” She knew she had me at Mai Tai’s at Tommy Bahama’s. I caved. Kim called Cheeto’s foster parents and arranged the itinerary.

On the Saturday afternoon before we were planning our road trip to the desert to meet this homeless kitten, Kim said that she got a call from Cheeto’s foster parents and they had to change their schedule, and we had to pick up Cheeto before 10:00 AM on Sunday. Damn, the Tommy Bahama Marlin Bar doesn’t open until 11:00. Also, there was no way I was going to show up at a bougee bar for some day drinking in the triple digit desert heat with a kitten in a carrier; it would just be too hot for the little guy. Also, I didn’t want to field any nosey inquiries about Cheeto from any curious onlookers. I was immediately reminded of the quote “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” (translated) from To a Mouse by Robert Burns. Or was it that I was actually tricked? The jury is still out for deliberation on this.

It was a breezy 80-MPH early morning drive to the Coachella Valley, and at around 9:00 AM we met with Cheeto’s foster family, who were very nice people. They had other siblings from Cheeto’s litter that were also very cute, but Cheeto was the cutest of the litter with his long, striped, flaming orange coat and his already magnificent orange striped fluffy tail. Looking at him, what immediately came to my mind was that he is a warrior Viking Kattuz and he should have been named something more appropriate like Ragnar or Frode or Gorm. But since he already had a brand name, I didn’t want to go through the rigamarole of the legal system’s rebranding process and deal with its legions of lawyers and reams of paperwork plus it would be too stressful for him to go before a judge at such a young age to plead his case.

We donated some money to Cheeto’s foster humans to help cover the costs of his surgery and his room and board in Palm Springs, popped the little orange fluffball into a cat carrier that we brought along with us, and were on our way back home before 10:00 AM.

A tear rolled down my face as we drove past the exit for the Marlin Bar.

Twenty minutes into the drive, Kim took Cheeto out of his carrier and held him in her lap all the way home. They bonded while I was driving down the Interstate trying to avoid the sea of idiotic Prius and Tesla drivers going exactly 65-MPH while everyone else around them was going 80. We got home around noon.

Our dog of questionable origins, Sydney, went bonkers when we introduced her to Cheeto. Syd had never seen a kitten before and I believe, at first, she thought Cheeto was a new play toy…until the claws came out. The yelp that Syd let out the first time she got impaled on her nose by a sharp kitten claw was both of pain and astonishment.

Now the real fun begins – raising another kitten. The thing about kittens is that they have no sense of time, and they seem to only have three modes; sleep (80%), eat (2%), and play (18%). Three modes and no schedule means that anything can happen at any time of day or night.

If kitty wakes up at 2:00 AM and wants to play, kitty is going to pounce on your head or on your face or walk up and down your body with remarkably heavy paws for such a small animal. This nocturnal behavior was not exclusive to victimizing the humans in the house – Syd got her fair share of harassment too. Turns out that this little kitten found in a hole in the desert was an insomnia inducing, circadian rhythm killing fluffball from the Viking underworld.

You might be asking; how fluffy is he? For starters, he has thick fur growing out between the pads of his paws that requires constant trimming, or else navigating the hardwood floors is more like ice skating than walking. The long, downy soft fur under his belly turns into baby dreadlocks if you don’t brush it regularly, which he absolutely hates. He has tufts of long fur coming out of his ears like a 90-year-old man. But it is his tail that takes the cake; it is a tail of such enormity that it is nearly the size of his body, and he struts around the house with it proudly waving high in the air and with such dignity that it borders on arrogance.

I’m surprised we haven’t received a notification from the city to get a permit for his glorious tail (effectively a tail tax), but I’m sure somewhere deep within the bowels of city hall, a bureaucrat sitting beneath a flickering fluorescent light is scheming.

Cheeto developed his own little parkour course in the bedroom between the upper and lower levels of the nightstand, our bed, and the dresser, Sydney’s donut shaped bed, and the windowsills. Rattling the horizontal shades in the wee hours of the morning is his personal favorite. It is his way, I think, of saying, “Wake up hoomans – it’s time to play NOW!” This feline reveille is when the 18% play factor feels more like 100%.

We tried to discourage him from his naughty nocturnal behavior with a spray bottle filled with tap water mixed with a little bit of white vinegar, but instead of dissuading him from his little night terror habit, he gamified it. For example, he will rattle the blinds and look over at me to see if I was reaching for the spray bottle. As soon as I motioned that I was arming myself, he would dive under the bed…and then he would come back up and do it again within 5-minutes. Every now and then when I was stealthy enough to hit my moving furry orange target he would scurry off to some dark corner of the bedroom, and after sulking for maybe 5-minutes, he would start all over again. I think he actually liked getting nailed with the spray bottle.

And if you make the mistake of wiggling your toes while you’re sleeping or hanging your hands or feet outside of the blanket, Cheeto will quickly remind you of his presence with a fang or a claw – not in a vicious way, mind you – but man, has he interrupted some good REM sleep sessions. One minute I’m sailing the ocean blue toward an emerald-green tropical island and the next minute I’m being attacked by a Kraken.

We tried closing him out of the bedroom too. It took him about 30-seconds to realize that he could reach under the bottom of the door and hook it from the inside with his claws and rattle it. The problem is that he has no musical rhythm and it made it impossible to incorporate his door rattling with any piece of music that I could think of while trying to lull myself back to sleep. It seemed as if we had a little orange monster in the hallway. I think if we had a levered door handle instead of a round doorknob, he would figure out how to open the bedroom door in a nanosecond. Don’t think that he hasn’t rattled the doorknob too!

Cheeto has developed some unusual dietary habits. He does not like any canned cat food at all. He has rejected every brand on the market; sorry Morris, you’re apparently a mislead spokescat. But Cheeto does love his Lickables, that is, as long as it does not have chunks in it. If it has chunks, he’ll lick around them. He also loves…wait for it…raw asparagus! One day we were bringing in the groceries and temporarily put the grocery bags on the kitchen counter. One of the bags had a bundle of asparagus in it. Cheeto hopped up on the counter and beelined it to that grocery bag, dove into it, pulled out the bundle of asparagus and started chomping the tips off of the stalks. Needless to say, we had to change our dinner menu. What a weirdo.

Cheeto has also developed an unhealthy obsession for plastic bags and not just for playing with; he chews on them and bites off and swallows chunks of them. One day he was not feeling well and was vomiting here and there. Finally, a cat sized bite of plastic sheeting came up and he felt better. We forensically matched it with a bite taken out of a recently delivered Amazon package. I think this also indicates that Cheeto has microplastics in his body. We are now in the habit of keeping all plastic bags away from him but mostly for selfish reasons like not wanting to step in any more cat vomit with bare feet and not wanting to take him to the vet for emergency abdominal surgery at 2-AM.

In our efforts to make life enjoyable, we have purchased many cat related products like catnip laced stuffed toys, plastic balls with bells and feathers, an oversized fake cheese puff bag that crinkles when you touch it, balls of twine, and a laser pointer. A friend of ours gifted Cheeto a nice multi-tiered cat tower replete with scratching posts, a perch, and all sorts of dangly things to bat around. He loves it.

One day Kim brought home a tape roll core made of thick cardboard and casually tossed it onto the living room floor. Cheeto lost his mind for about an hour pouncing, batting, kicking, and chasing that thing around the house. The problem was that he also liked to pounce, bat, kick, and chase that thing around in the wee hours of the morning. This is what happens when you’re a spoiled suburban housecat with an all-access pass and zero rules.

I considered sending Cheeto off to a fancy boarding school somewhere like Shortridge Academy, New Hampshire, Hurtwood House School, United Kingdom, or Collège du Léman, Geneva, Switzerland, to knock off the rough semi-feral edges and polish him up a little bit but after seeing the outrageous tuition of those places I immediately changed my mind as it would quickly land me in bankruptcy court.

On the upside, Cheeto does have a sweet, loving side to him. He likes hanging out on the living room couch with us. He’ll nudge your hands relentlessly to encourage you to pet him. Sometimes he even cuddles with Sydney.

So, we’ll just keep our diamond in the rough gato diablo as he is and adjust our lives accordingly (as per usual) because we do love him despite his lack of a formal education and his overabundance of antics.

©2024. All rights reserved.