It’s five weeks today.

Five weeks ago, I caved in after immense pressure and nagging from Herself, and completely against my better judgement [my judgement is always better] and did something I knew I would regret.

Five weeks since I allowed a cat into the house.

Initially he was a pain in the arse.  Herself maintained he was her cat, but of course you can guess who did all the feeding and clearing out of the cat litter box.  After a couple of weeks of this I got pissed off with all this and opened the doors to let the cat wander out.  There was of course an unspoken hope that the cat would fuck off somewhere else and peace could return to the house.

That didn’t happen.

The cat has taken to the place and nothing will shift him.  He wanders in and out and has definitely decided that this is the place he always dreamed of.  The one great thing is that from the moment I opened that door, the litter box has remained untouched.  At least I no longer have that joyous task to look forward to.

Amazingly Penny has developed a remarkable tolerance towards the intruder.  Basically she just ignores it and has laid down one and only one law – thou shalt not touch dogfood.  This works well because Cat doesn’t like dogfood anyway.  Cat on the other hand has taken an interest in Penny as a potential playmate – a potential that would interfere with Penny’s sleeping and therefore one that isn’t reciprocated.  However, Cat decides every now and then for a bit of fun and will taunt Penny until, with a sigh of an overtired parent, will chase the cat across the garden and up a tree. Well, the cat will go up the tree but Penny hasn’t mastered that art yet.  Once Cat is up the tree, Penny will return to her couch to continue her sleep, while Cat wanders in [with a smirk on his face] to demand more food.

Herself still insists on calling Cat “Malone”.  Not once has Cat answered to the name.  There again, he doesn’t answer to “Cat” either, so either he is deaf, stupid or just couldn’t be arsed.  My money is on the latter. She’s delighted though because every evening Cat curls up and goes to sleep on her lap.  I haven’t the heart to point out that the cat is, in fact curled up on his favourite blanket which happens to be on her lap.  Who am I to disillusion Herself?

The only thing I have yet to discover is how the cat gets on the fucking roof.  One of his favourite spots is up on the roof just above the oil tank and I have had to retrieve him from there on more than one occasion.  There are three routes he could use to get up there.  There is the possibility that he can do a vertical jump of around ten feet.  Unlikely?  Or he could go upstairs  and open the door to the roof which is kept locked [and even I have difficulty opening it].  Seeing as that would entail unlocking the door, opening it [as I said – very difficult] and closing [and locking] the door from the outside, which cannot be done.

So that leaves only one other possibility.  He jumps on a table, and from there onto a chest of drawers.  From there he has to leap at a fanlight which would involve changing direction in mid air, and completely defying gravity. .Maybe breathing all those kerosene fumes from the oil tank has given him superpowers?

Should I call him “Catman”?

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