The cat put his foot in my breakfast this morning. I should have been disgusted, because who knows where that foot has been. Upon weighing it up, however, I decided that I’d rather polish off my breakfast than be disgusted by the cat putting his foot in it. Now that I’m more than sixty and still here in fairly good nick, a quiet battle goes on over the matter of hygiene. On one hand I think that if any dubious hygiene practises haven’t killed me by now then I’ve clearly built up some resistance; and on the other hand I wonder if my resistance might be getting a little less robust now, so I should be more careful. To date, the former stance wins more than the latter. Perhaps this is the slippery slope to being a grubby old person. Note to self – don’t let the cat put his foot in my breakfast again.

I usually either read a book, or open my laptop to check what’s going on in the world, while I eat my rolled oats. When I’ve sat down at the table, the cat usually jumps up on it – ‘fessing up here to more bad hygiene habits – and proceeds to do his utmost to get in my way in order to force my hand to give him head rubs. He usually gets his way. This morning was a laptop morning, with breakfast bowl to one side, and me being a slave to the cat’s desires whilst parked in the most inconvenient place he could find.

Eventually, I nudged him out of the way – and I swear it was just a nudge – as it gets difficult to see the screen and eat food with him planted right where other action should be taking place. To give the cat his due, it can’t have been easy for him to get his back foot inside my breakfast bowl, which is somewhat on the giant side.

He must have performed some quite special manoeuvres to achieve it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to be impressed, because I didn’t see them. I just saw the foot in my rolled oats once the deed was done. The manoeuvres weren’t completely done and dusted, though, because it remained for him to step out of my rolled oats and onto the document I had beside my laptop, then jump down off the table onto the carpet, and flick any of the remaining offending gunk off his foot. After the manoeuvres were complete, he went and sat by his own bowl in the kitchen and looked at me. The message was conveyed and received – I got up from the table and gave him more food.

I’m not sure how much I like this sadomasochist relationship the cat and I have. Weirdly, I deliberately relinquish power in a relationship which I feel I could have some power in. It’s a kind of mind control, I reckon. He makes me do other weird things, too. A little while ago, a couple of women friends came around to visit. I thought we’d just sit at the dining table to chat and catch up, but they headed for the couches in the lounge area, so I had to firmly tell them to stop! They dutifully did, and not unreasonably looked questioningly at me. “Hang on”, I said, and rushed away into the kitchen. Also not unreasonably, their eyes popped a little when I came back with green rubber gloves on.

But all became clear when I began wiping up cat hair from one of the couches with my hands whilst wearing the rubber gloves. The hair sticks wonderfully to them, and works a treat to clear animal hair off furniture.

On some fabrics it works better for the gloves to be a little wet, but on my couches dry rubber gloves work okay. I wonder how much more my friends’ eyes would have popped if I’d come back with wet rubber gloves on? I confess I almost wish I had 🙂

Patrick, the cat, is getting on in years a bit now, and I’ll shortly have to take him to the vet to get his teeth checked. It will more than likely result in some being removed. If he thinks I’m going to feed him through a straw, though – he’s probably right.

However, I did put my foot down over Christmas, and I did not buy him a present. He played the “I don’t care game”, but I know he was secretly miffed, because I have the scratches on my ankles as proof. It appears that Patrick’s not too old yet to keep playing the game of ambushing me. I have yet to master the same “I don’t care” attitude, though, as my regular screeches at him during this game attest to. Bloody (boss) cat!