Dear Wally #55 Teaser

Dear Wally- Are you a cat person or a dog person?
-Laurel

Dear Laurel- You guess. Here’s a letter I once wrote to our enormous black cat, Teaser.

Cat,
I don’t like you rubbing up against my leg. I never have and I never will. We go through this every day. This is not new material. You should be chasing mice not fishing for compliments by parading your oversized, puckering exhaust pipe back and forth at us and our guests every living moment of every living day. Put that tail down! It’s almost like you are giving my steel-tipped work boot a huge, pulsing neon bulls-eye.

I trip on you because you are constantly underfoot. Constantly. Why don’t you read the memo I posted clearly stating ‘No cats allowed underfoot.” What don’t you understand about this? You seem to be missing the social cues and body language perception skills that other lesser species have. Yet I hear cats are very perceptive. And barn cats wily. So what is your problem?? The more I recoil, the more persistent you are. Plus you leave cat hair everywhere. That is the primary reason you are an OUTSIDE cat. (That, and I find you pushy) (and the word ‘barn’ is right there in your title). I put that word ‘outside’ in capitals as a courtesy in case your eyesight is going (I have reason to believe that your eyesight is going because there are STILL mice around and it looks like they are having a holiday on your watch. Are they? Are you on the take or something? What are they paying you to leave them alone and pester me? Whatever it is, I’ll double it.)

Cat,
Even if I shaved you bald, there would still be black cat hair everywhere. How can anything lose as much hair as you and not be completely bald? I think you grow it just to leave a trail of it everywhere you go in case you get lost. Yet you never stray far from the front door. I bet you say, “If I can’t be inside, at least my hair can.” There’s a path of snarly black cat hair from the front steps of the house to the hood of my car. There are muddy cat paw prints (Don’t try to blame it on a raccoon, I’ve got your number) on the hood of my car crisscrossing left and right, up and down. Are you practicing Salsa y Merenge on my car or something? Shouldn’t you be CHASING MICE? You fight the other cats when we put breakfast food down. So I know you have the fight in you. Why don’t you turn that hostility towards a good cause? (ummm, like getting field mice?)Would it kill you to think about your work a bit more instead of bickering with your fellow barn cats? The only catfight I want to see is between Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan and Hanna Montana and it involves jello. (Are you listening God?)

Cat,
I know you hate my dogs and want to see them garroted. Unfortunately the feeling with them is mutual. We fell on the dog side of the cat/dog lover’s fence long before we met you. Don’t take it personally. There’s a reason for the expression ‘fighting like cats and dogs’ (There’s also a reason for the expression ‘raining like cats and dogs’ but I have no idea what it means.) I’m sorry, but we’re too old to change. The inside is for the dogs, the outside is for the cats. Just as the memo states. I know winter is coming and you think you will be cold. You wont. Trust me. Try to keep some of that hair on your body. It will help. We made you an insulated cathouse (in the barn- do you remember where that is?? If you get lost, follow the mice) but you refuse to stay in it. Are you upset there is no room service or something? Instead you park your keester smackdab on the stoop of our front door, where each morning I trip. We haven’t changed the policy. We wont.

Cat,
I know you have self-esteem and co-dependency issues to work out. Never mind the abandonment issues you have with your father. But strutting like a cheap $3 whore on my front porch, I assure you, is not the answer. It is pathetic and I hope you can get the professional help you need.

Remember this final thought. I’d like you 215 times more if you pulled your own weight around here. (And if you didn’t leap up and pull the heads off of birds in mid-flight). And I’m sorry I inadvertently ran you over last year with my car. I felt horrible. I’m glad you are feeling better. I feel like we’ve gotten a little closer as a result of that incident. Not much, but a little bit. Under my car is not a great place to nap, you know…

Cat,
My appreciation of you is fickle and foxy like the wind and, at times, downright questionable.

-Wally



Got a letter for our advice columnist or are you a crazy old cat lady who is wants to letter-bomb him? Here’s his email address: cwn4@aol.com

(ps- Simmer down cat lady- this is a bit of a goof- Teaser is pretty cool actually)