No, Kitty, don't eat THAT!!!

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

So I’m going to take my evening shower, and I decide to take my cat, Maggie, in the bathroom with me. For some reason, she likes to be in the bathroom when people are taking a bath or shower.

So I’m in the shower, and Maggie decides to jump up on the window that’s above the toilet, and right next to the shower stall. If I peep out the curtain, I can rest my chin on the edge of the sill, and she’ll come up and nuzzle and be all cuddly.

Well, I hear this batting sound, and I look over, and Maggie seems to be batting at something at the edge of the window. I thought she was trying to open it-the windows slide sideways in the bathroom-and we keep them closed because the screens are rather flimsy ones, and the cats could tear them open and get outside. With me? All right, so I keep pushing her paws away from it, and she keeps at it. Finally, she knocks something off of the window, and starts to eat it.

What, you ask, was Maggie trying to eat? Why a little piece of window caulking! Yes, a little grey puttyish crumb she had managed to knock out of there. I take it off of her, push her off the window sill and onto the floor, and put the piece of caulking aside on the edge of the tub. I finish my shower, get out, and then I let her go.

What the FUCK, cat? Why would you try to eat caulking? Jesus Christ, it’s not like we don’t feed you (believe me, she gets fed and then some!) and it’s not like you don’t steal our food every chance you get.

Cats. What would we do without them?

#2

If it turns out not to be food, they can always throw it back up later.

#3

Since we got our Cisco, he’s eaten: dog hair off the floor, ribbon (we have to keep it locked up the way parents of small children lock up the drain cleaner), string, thread, people hair out of the garbage, a third of a shoelace (I caught him and hauled it back out), a twist tie, a loose piece of yarn from a throw on the sofa (mercifully, that one came back up too, rather than him swallowing the whole damn thing), dog vomit, the paper strips from stick-on pads, and part of a plastic bag. These are, of course, in addition to the things you might expect a cat to eat (food, people food, dog food, etc.). On the bright side, we keep the house much cleaner than we did before we got him, and everything we haven’t caught him in the act of eating has come out mostly unassisted. I’m still dreading the day he ends up in the emergency clinic with a loop of something wrapped around his intestine.

Cisco is the tabby strangling the Siamese.

#4

My cat has that strange attraction to people using the bathroom, too. I’ve never understood why they do that. I’ve never had a problem with her eating weird things (she’s even sensitive to normal catfood). However, Cat has stopped trying to enter when people take showers or baths.

She stopped bothering us in the shower when, while standing on the toilet pouncing our shadows behind the curtain, she got a little over-zealous and fell in the water.

She stopped bothering us in the bath when, while inspecting a candle on the side of the tub while I was distracted by my book, she burned off half her whiskers and fell in the tub. The worst bit? She had a doctor’s appointment the next day. Try explaining that to your vet. I’m surprised the SPCA didn’t show up at my door.

#5

My lord and master, Pixel, is usually pretty good … given mass quantities of various treats. But when i switched over to the “World’s Best” cat litter (made from corn) he walked up to the newly filled litter box and started snacking ! i had to put a thin layer of the old clay stuff on top for him to get the idea.

#6

Damn. I bet it was really hard for her to do the “I meant to do that” face afterward.

#7

Our mostly-black cat Sal, age 14, will now only drink water from the bathtub. I close the drain as if to run a bath, then fill that end with water. He hops in, drinks to his heart’s content, and then hops out. Bizarre.

#8

Not sure, as I couldn’t see her face. Actually, I didn’t see her face for about two hours.

#9

When you’re in the bath or shower, the cat is thinking, “WTF? Its wet in there! Do you realize that? Are you that stupid? Get out of there and do something useful . . . like feeding me!”

My old grey cat, Jake sees anyone on the toilet he knows he has a captive lap. :eek: This has surprized many people.

#10

Isadora has an undying passion for shoelaces. She has destroyed at least six pairs - two of mine, three of The Boy’s, and one of our friend’s. In fact, that picture was taken on the way home from the vet, after she horked up six inches of shoelace and we wanted to make sure she was okay. (She was.)

Tyberius just has a thing for cardboard boxes - sitting in them, perching on top of them, and chewing them to shreds. That, and he eats carpet fuzz, but I think that’s all cats.

#11

I’m sure they’ve seen it before. We sometimes light candles for the Jewish Sabbath and for Hanukkah, and we have to keep a close eye on them, because the cats are curious about them.

#12

My cats eat carpet fuzz, carpet bits, dust bunnies, and bits of fur from the occasional catfight. I can’t have a bathroom rug because they’ll try to denude it of all the fiber on it, even if I soak it in bitter apple. :stuck_out_tongue:

They are freaks. That is all.

#13

My cat would happily gnaw snaps off of sweaters if we’d let him. He also has a habit of pulling pins out of partially finished sewing projects and trying to eat those. His favorite thing to chew on, though, is foam. He munches on Nerf darts like they’re Cheetos, and he once destroyed an entire pool noodle (it had been stored behind the couch over the winter, and when someone went to get it to take to the pool, all that was left was a pile of foam scraps).

#14

Mia Bella likes to eat hair.

Her newest entertainment du jour is to get up on the back of my office chair, and smack me in the head a few times (fluffs up the hair, dontcha know). She will then pick a good spot, and start chewing. Sometimes I don’t feel it right away, and it’s the wet smacking sounds that alert me to what she’s doing. Weirdo.

Of course hair removal is just as fascinating, apparently. She loves to watch BF shave. Gets up on the counter, and sings and trills to him and ocassionally dips her paw into the wet sink.

#15

Khan loves ribbon, as well. But not good fabric ribbon. The crappy papery/plasticy stuff you use on gifts for people who aren’t important enough for fabric ribbon. We can usually get it away from him in time, otherwise it seems to pass through pretty harmlessly. So far.

Chunk loves elastic hair ties. He won’t try to actually eat them. He will simply stalk and kill them until they’re no longer one solid loop, then abandon them because they are presumably no longer a challenge.

Sirius eats toes. Specifically, my toes. He never bothers anybody else.

#16

drae, you are doomed…never to wear white or black. :wink:

#17

No freakin’ kidding. :rolleyes:

#18

Misty also likes to come in the bathroom when one is in the shower/tub. As a kitten, she liked to PLAY in the shower, even if the water was running. Now she just sticks her head in.

But fortunately, she doesn’t try to eat window caulking.

Buffy, on the other hand, has been observed trying to eat hair that the other cats have shed. WTF?

#19

What really scares me here is the following question about your cat’s name:

  1. DS9 captain or router manufacturer?
#20

We’ve bought Clark, our cat, hundreds of dollars’ worth of toys. And you know what he likes WAYYYY more than playing with toys?

Playing with garbage.

If we’ve left even the tiniest speck of dirt or paper or crumb or anything anywhere, he will play with it. He’ll do so LOUDLY, and he’ll do so at 3am. Guaranteed.