Hank's Cat Audit
... the day that they checked up on Hank
When I awoke, Hank was laying at the foot of my bed. He spends roughly half his time there. I have always envied him this; had I the choice, I'd do the same. I don't think I'd do as effective a job of sleeping as he does, though. Hank spends his time in one of two states. One of them is profoundly deep sleep. I really envy that.
When I awoke, Hank was digging his teeth and claws into my left foot. This is why I awoke. At some point in the preceding moment, my foot, buried underneath the sheets of my bed, had somehow offended him, and he was setting things right.
Once, I went to a sleep disorder treatment clinic. They theorized that the reason why I'm always falling asleep is that I don't sleep very soundly, and the reason I don't sleep very soundly is because I have a case of apnea, and the reason that I have apnea is that I'm so overweight. Actually, I think they said "obese," but that's really getting off-topic.
To confirm their suspicions, they had me stay there for a night so they could observe me sleeping. I couldn't remember the last time I got such a good night's sleep. They told me that they saw no direct evidence of apnea, but being doctors, they clung to the diagnosis despite the total absence of supporting evidence because that's just what doctors do.
It wasn't until Hank had to spend the night at the vet's for some dental work that I realized why my sleep is so fitful.
When I awoke, when I realized that Hank had (again) set upon my foot, I screamed. When I screamed, my downstairs neighbor pounded on his ceiling (my floor) with what I presumed to be a broom handle. This was accompanied by some muffled monosyllabic slice of invective delivered with the same volume and cadence as it had been the last dozen times.
When I awoke, after I screamed, after the neighbor thumped and yelled, Hank sprang up off the bed - straight up - and shrieked his battle cry. Or whatever kind of cry it is. Hank has never been content with the typical mono- or bi-syllabic utterances common to others of his species. The noise he makes has the complexity and rhythm that's fairly similar to that of someone running into the room and breathlessly shouting "Your libidinous credenza is jealously defenestrating albino monkeys!" - and makes about as much sense. Hank spends his time in one of two states. He had just switched to the second, which involves engaging in madcap, hyperactive, furious, and entirely goal-avoiding activity.
When I awoke, after everyone had screamed, Hank ran out of the room as quickly as he could, which is very quickly indeed. Because I was in bed, I could not see what happened next, but I could hear it. I did not need to hear it, because I knew it by heart.
Hank raced out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, and without breaking pace, leapt into the bathtub. Hank spends the other half of his time in the bathtub. The fraction of his day that is spent neither in bed nor in the bathtub is spent running between the two at breakneck speeds, producing entirely nonsensical, but frenzied utterances.
Hank loves the bathtub. He loves his baths. As is my habit most evenings, I had run him a bath before going to bed. I assumed that there was still at least a half an inch of water in the tub. When Hank landed in the bathtub, he encountered a significantly reduced coefficient of friction, causing him to slide to the back of the tub, slide up the wall of the tub, and into the air, sort of like one of those skateboarders doing a trick. As was his custom, he pushed off from the wall, giving him just enough hang-time to shout his equivalent to "Cowabunga!" before re-establishing contact with the tub in a very loud splash.
I listened to Hank splash around in the tub for a few moments, making his contented cooing noises. I had almost fallen asleep before he jumped out of the tub, shouted something about cretinous melmac, and raced into the other room to his cat box.
Hank has never understood the relationship between taking baths and clumping cat litter, which probably explains why he spends so much time wearing concrete galoshes. After furious kicking and scratching, he managed to knock most of its contents out onto the floor, excepting for the bits that stuck to him.
He ran into my office, where he created a tremendous crashing noise. I've been a cat owner long enough to know better than to investigate these noises. I know that if I roll over and go back to sleep, that by morning, there will be no evidence of damage or any logical explanation for the crashing noise of the night before. I think this is because cats do actually destroy everything in their owners' houses every night. They just have clean-up crews that come in to put it all back right before morning. Dr. Seuss did not write fiction.
Hank came tearing back into the bedroom, but moving more slowly than usual. I peered over the edge of my bed in time to see him scoot by. He was pushing a legal sized manila envelope across the floor using his face. He had his head half into the envelope, which probably explained why it was that he hit the wall face first at a full trot.
His chores complete, he jumped back onto the foot of the bed and went back to sleep. I followed suit.
When I next awoke, Hank was off in the bathroom again, happily splashing around in his tub. I rolled over and just about went back to sleep before it registered. Very slowly, and quietly, I peered back over my shoulder. It was still there, and it hadn't noticed that I'd noticed.
She - I didn't know this yet, but I soon established that it was she - was sitting in the chair next to the bed. Another cat. This one was wearing a pair of glasses - wire frame with oval lenses, as is the fashion nowadays - as well as a lime green polyester pants suit. That wasn't what caught my eye. What caught my eye was that she wasn't masking her appearance. I mean, I've always known this about cats, but to actually see it for the first time is rather jarring. All eight legs, and thumbs on at least four of her paws. Holding a clipboard, a writing implement of some sort, and a coffee cup. She'd been focused on whatever notes she was taking, which is why she didn't see me see her at first. If you know what I mean.
When she finished writing, she looked over the top of her glasses at me and said, "Shit."
"S'ok. What's up."
She at least looked relieved that she didn't have to explain the legs and all that stuff. "Just checking up on you, that's all."
"Well, I'm screwed."
Hank, still happily splashing in the tub, made a trilling noise best described as yodeling.
The other cat - the one with the clipboard - rolled her eyes, scribbled something else and said, "Hardly."
I nodded. "That's a relief."
She kept scribbling. "Won't be much longer." She waved an unoccupied paw at me to signal me to go ahead and go back to sleep. Might have done, too, if Hank hadn't gone into a hacking and coughing fit. She looked at me expectantly, as if to ask why I wasn't doing anything about Hank's apparent distress.
"He just snorted a nose full of water again. Does it at least three times a day."
She said, in a rather bored voice, "Right," and scribbled a bit more.
"What is it with him, anyway?"
She shot me an annoyed look, which coming from a cat, can be pretty damned annoyed looking, but I wasn't going to let it go.
"I mean, I get the part about you guys being pan-dimensional beings and all that…"
"Ok, who told you that?" She was clearly pissed.
"Not important. I just know, that's all."
"Go on."
"Yeah, so if you cats are all so smart, what's the deal with Hank? I mean, look at him. He's got the intellectual horsepower of…"
"A shoe tree?"
"I wasn't going to be that nice, but yeah."
She flicked a paw as if this were all a trifle. "Special ed."
"Eh?"
"Developmentally disabled. Three paws shy. Light's on in a vacuum. He's a retread."
"Huh. I didn't think you guys had those."
She shrugged, sort of. "Yeah, so what?"
I didn't really have a snappy answer to that. After a moment, "And you leave them under human supervision?"
There was a furious splashing noise from the bathroom, accompanied by a triumphant wail of "Adulterous lobotomy!"
She said, "Sure, why not? The rest of us got more important shit to do."
"So, what're you?"
"Caseworker."
"His?"
"Yours."
"I don't get it."
"Of course not, you're human." She clipped her writing instrument to the top of her clipboard and continued. "All human cat servants get caseworkers."
"Oh. You guys don't… you know, kidnap people and do medical experiments on them, do you?"
"Naw, that's the chimpanzees. One hell of a sense of humor they got."
I mulled on that for a moment.
She added, "You know, you really were promising when you were younger."
"You mean Oblio?"
"Yeah. You were on the fast track to a five star rating, then you completely blew it."
I nodded, or tried to. I was still in bed, so my action had the effect of rubbing the side of my face in stale pillow drool. "You mean JFCL. I guess I really did treat her like shit."
"One of the worst cases of neglect on record. The only reason that we ever considered you for another placement was Oblio's going to bat for you."
"But he's been dead for decades."
She shook her head. "I keep forgetting how limiting three-dee must be. You know, shit doesn't just happen in neat little boxes like that. He's always here."
It didn't seem worth arguing. "Well, if I was in trouble like that, I guess it's a good thing I didn't try adopting a cat for so long."
"See, you humans get your little three-dee causality all screwed up. You didn't decide that. We did."
"I'd rather not believe that."
"Of course not. Your brain would explode. Then where would Hank be?"
Thanks for nothing! But, what she said made a few pieces click into place. "So, Streak?"
"Yeah. Combination reviewer/instructor."
"Sure, thanks. Tear my guts out. I mean, send her in for less than a year, let me get all attached and everything, then tear her away, and I get to spend four months with a lump in my throat."
"Yes, that really impressed us. That's why you're approved for adoptions again… albeit with restrictions."
"Restrictions?"
"Well, you still owe a little penance for that whole JFCL fiasco."
"I see."
"So, your file is flagged. 'Special needs placements only.'"
I let that sink in. While I did, Hank set about drinking his bath. Once again, I didn't need to see this, because I could tell by hearing.
He crouches down on all fours, sticks his head way forward, and flattens his ears to the sides like stubby wings attached to his head. Each lap of his tongue reverberates through his hollow cranium, making a noise just like striking one of those woodblocks I remembered in high school band.
"Tock-tock-tock-tock-tock-tock…" he can, and does, go on like that for hours. Half his problem, I think, stems from the fact that his eyesight is lousy, and he can't really tell where the water is. Consequently, about ¾ of his laps only scoop air. "Tock-tock-tock-tock-tock…"
She looked at the bathroom and buried her face in one of her paws.
I said, "So, I'm on this list, therefore I get…"
"Feline rutabaga, yes."
"Tock-tock-tock-tock-tock…"
I thought about it for a while longer, my thoughts synchronized to the vacuous metronome in the bathroom. "Hey, wait a minute! What about Ruby? I mean, yeah, she had no personality, but she's still smarter than shit."
"Emergency foster placement."
"But she's normal, right?"
"Nope. Autistic savant."
"Huh. Shoulda had her do my taxes when I had the chance then."
"Yeah, she might have done it, too. She never has been good at following code."
"Why emergency placement?"
"Oh, we knew right up front that you wouldn't be able to stand her. Still, we had an emergency, and we had to find someplace for her and her kittens while we were looking for a permanent home. Believe it or not, you really did earn a lot of points on that one, all things considered. You could get your five star rating yet."
"But strictly for the drool crowd?"
"You catch on fast for a human."
She started cramming her stuff into a bag, making like she was about to leave. "Anyway, we've been watching. You really do love Hank, so it isn't all that bad, now is it?"
"Ambidextrous Balkan armoires reflexively disseminate injustice!" Hank came tearing through the room on his way to the kitchen.
"Yeah, I do. He's one sweet guy. Just wish he'd leave my damn foot alone."
She faded out of the room, her grin being her last visible feature. It lingered long enough to say, "Our little joke. We told him that it was your secret catnip stash." Then she was gone.
When I awoke, Hank was next to me on the bed, trying to wedge his head between my hand and the mattress. When he saw my eyes open, he greeted me: "Felicitous goulash reconsecration?"
I smiled at him and scratched his head.
He purred the purr of a Mack Truck, turned around, shoved his butt into my face, and fell back asleep.
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