Halfway down the Danube

Typhoon Max, Part II

...So I seduced him.

Two weeks after the typhoon, the whole thing was just getting totally intolerable. I mean, he just kept looking right THROUGH me. Wouldn't let me near him, wouldn't let me touch him. Wouldn't sleep with me anymore... he'd still sleep on my bed, but only during the day when I was out. Spent his nights in the guest bedroom. Spent a lot more time than usual wandering the neighborhood, too... he actually got into a fight, his first in months (probably with his archenemy, The Evil Orange Cat). And now and then, if I tried particularly hard to attract his attention, he'd shoot me these brief looks of utter contempt... you know, like "I KNOW I'm compelled to share my living space with you, but MUST you be such a loud, tacky, vulgar, uncouth... human?"

Well.

In a proper seduction, timing is everything. Timing, and patience, and careful preparation. And knowing the weak spots of the object of your seduction.

Max has three. One is obvious as soon as you look at him: good food. He didn't reach 18 pounds plus by being finicky. Max likes eating. The second is catnip.

The third is the sweet spot where his spine makes a right angle at the base of his tail. Short-circuits his brain somehow, that does -- scratch him there for ten seconds, and he trembles, his mouth hangs open, his eyes glaze over, he starts to drool uncontrollably and make strange little percolator noises, and then, more often than not, he'll just collapse on his side, feet sticking straight out, gasping for a belly rub.

But this trick would only work after a good ten seconds of scratching -- not possible while he kept running away from me.

And he had ignored catnip and open cans of Friskies Gourmet, and was still ignoring them. But then, perhaps these were too... obvious. Perhaps some subtlety was called for. And combining the various weak spots together. So...

The first thing I did was shift cat foods. Normally I feed them three or four different kinds -- cheap dry, good dry, fancy-schmansy dry, wet -- more or less at random from day to day, to add a little variety to their lives. But now I shifted to the cheap dry and stayed with it for several days. This brought complaints at first, then an increasing tendency to leave the bowl full while either coming to head-butt and beg for something better (Momo) or becoming ever frostier and more aloof (Max). After a couple of days of this, they were both becoming distinctly peckish.

Then I went and bought some ice cream.

Step two required some patience, waiting for the right moment. It came on Friday afternoon. I got home from work and both Max and Momo were in the living room -- he in his favorite spot, sprawled magnificently across the back of the couch, she on the table curled around the CPU of the Macintosh. Perfect. I went to the fridge and made myself a bowl of ice cream. Momo came in and poured herself around my legs -- ice cream? Is that *ice* cream? Have I told you lately how much I love you, Doug? How much I love, love, love you? Well, I do love you, Doug, yes I do...

Strolling into the living room, I leaned nonchalantly against the bookshelf and began scooping Dreyers Cookies and Cream into my mouth. Momo went into a frenzy of head-butting, shoulder-rubbing, and lascivious purring. Max simply sat there. But -- I know my cat. I could see the hint of tension in his posture. He wanted to step down from his perch and walk away, slowly, ponderously, belly swaying back and forth with dignity... but he couldn't quite bring himself to do it.

"Mmmm," I said. "Good ice cream. Yes, sir." Purring and rubbing. Frosty silences. "Oh -- guess I can't quite finish it. Hmm. Momo-chan, you want some? Yes?" I carefully set the bowl down on the floor. "Oh, do you like that? Yes? Oh we LIKE that, don't we. Iiiiiice creeeeeeeam. Mmmmmmm. Goooooooood."

At this point, of course, Max DID hop down from the couch and waddle, just a little stiff-legged, towards the door. He stopped at the cat door and gave me a swift glance of utter and absolute contempt -- why *ever* did God, Who is a very large cat, create creatures as crass, boorish and generally repulsive as humans, what was He thinking -- and then squeezed himself out, tail twitching with annoyance.

Step two complete, I thought. Now for step three...

Saturday I bought some Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey, and some fresh catnip. Saturday night, no opportunities. Sunday morning, busy. But Sunday afternoon... yes. There they were again, one on the couch, the other on the CPU.

"Sorry, darling," I said to Momo as I scooped her up. "Need you to go outside for a bit," tossing her out and locking the cat door behind her. Ignoring the faint confused mewl, I went back to the freezer and took the whole pint of B&J out.

I tucked myself into the sofa chair, flicked on the TV, and began to slowly scoop spoonfuls out of the carton. History Channel... CNN... VH1... "Mmm. This is good ice cream," Fox Network... ABC... "Baywatch". "Mmm... yeah..." NBC... MTV... "Oh, look, Cheryl Crow is making a video in her underwear. And everyone else in the video is really ugly. Mmm... grunt... um... smack," Discovery channel, CBS, oh heck "Baywatch" again... "Mmmm... sluuurp..."

Across the room, Max was totally engrossed in looking out the window. Ice cream? What ice cream? I'm not interested in any ice cream. I'm so far from being interested in ice cream, that the light from it will take several hours to reach me. Really. MTV? "Baywatch"? Humans are so strange. And boring. This window, now... what an interesting view.

After ten minutes or so of slow spooning and carefully calculated slurps, grunts, and moans of pleasure, there was nothing left of the pint but a golf-ball sized lump of banana ice cream, floating in about two inches of melt at the bottom of the carton. I was ready... it was time to make my move.

Reaching into my pocket, I removed the Baggie full of fresh catnip and, turning slightly away from Max, dumped it into the carton. Three quick stirs with my finger, then I set the carton down on the table, ostentatiously stretched, and said to nobody in particular, "Go pee." Then I walked out the door into the corridor to the bedroom, hands in pockets and singing softly to myself ("This is no social crisis, this is just you having fun, noooo crisis,"), proceeded down the hall to the bathroom, where I opened the door, shut it loudly without going in, stopped singing and began to count very very quietly to myself. "Thirty. Twenty-nine... twenty-eight..."

"...two... one." I had slipped out of my flip-flops, and now I went back up the hall barefoot and on tiptoe, to peer around the door into the living room.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't sneak up on a cat. Sure, their ears and noses are a hundred times better than ours. Sure, they can sense vibrations through the floor and subtle movements of the air. But it doesn't matter how good your senses are if the brain behind them is distracted. And Max had his head shoved so far into the ice cream carton that he was more or less wearing it like a helmet.

And so I was able to come right up behind him and... gently, very gently... lay my hand on his back and begin to stroke.

He twitched. No, he flinched. And he thought about running, I know. But catnip works quickly, and his little brain was already beginning to effervesce. And he was just snorkeling the Ben & Jerry's, lap lap lapping up tonguefuls of melted creamy extra-rich banana ice cream. Just a few seconds, he thought. Just let me finish this off, and then I'll just... Slowly I moved my hand down his back to the spot at the base of his tail, and began to scratch.

It was close. He knew the danger. He quickly slurped up the last of the ice cream, shook the carton off his head (leaving a very fetching crown of liquid Chunky Monkey mixed with scraps of catnip all around the top of it) and took a faltering step or two away. But the catnip had weakened his will, and then the wave from the sweet spot hit his brain.

He trembled. His claws flexed and his eyes glazed over. His mouth dropped open and he began to make strange little percolator noises. He made one last shuddering attempt to gather himself and run away... and then, slowly, with immense dignity, he toppled to one side and collapsed: THUD.

"Awww, Maaax," I said softly, still scratching. I brought my other hand around, and up, and in for the kill, plunging it into the soft fur of his immense belly. "Belly rub, Max... bellllllly ruuuuuuuuub..."

Sunday night Max took the middle of the bed. And instead of wrestling him for it as I normally would, pulling the sheets from under him and shoving him to the edge, I just let him lie there, purring, and I curled myself around him like a comma, and slept peacefully and happily while my great fat cat just purred and purred, rumbling like a hidden engine of happiness through the long quiet tropical night.

Since you asked...

Posted by claudia at May 9, 2006 08:42 PM