I think my cat is bulimic.

I currently am the parent to three pets--two cats that tolerate actively plan each other’s demise each other and an enthusiastic food whore of a dog.  

One cat, Cordelia, actively enjoys vomiting.  She particularly likes to spew (a)during the wee hours of the morning; (b)on clean laundry; and (c)in spots where I won't find it.  She actually has mad skills when it comes to barfing.  If there were an Olympic event for targeted puking, she would win the gold, hands down. I have found vomit behind our 6.5 megaton computer desk.  I have found it under the bathroom rug. (Which means that this damn cat is intelligent and duplicitous enough to attempt to hide her kitty purging.) I have found it in a pair of my sneakers.  (Blech.  That was a fairly disgusting wake-up call.) Apparently carpeting makes cats nauseated.  My tile will remain pristine for weeks.  (Okay, that’s a lie.  I only mop when the dog hair starts to pile up in the corners of my kitchen.)   I swear she knows when I have just vacuumed; within seconds a fresh bout of feline heaving begins.  I have become resigned to the stains in my carpet and to the fact that my cat seems to be bulimic.

She also has an obsession with closed doors.  If any door in the house is closed it immediately becomes like an exclusive kitty nightclub.  She MUST get inside.  If the door is not amenable (i.e., I don’t jump up and open it for her) the scratching begins.  *scritchscritchscritchscritch* (Cat waits several seconds.) *scritchscritchSCRITCHscritchSCRITCHSCRITCHSCRITCH* If there is still no response from her lackey owner, the cat then goes into full-on psycho kitty mode.  Her little paws move so quickly that they are little more than tortoiseshell blurs.  This is even more exciting at 2:30 a.m. during the work week; but then she also adds the ding-dong-ditch element to this little game.  I am a light sleeper.  After trying to ignore the scrabbling for several minutes, I stomp to the door ready to kick some kitty a&@.   Ostensibly the cat has planned for this—as soon as I open the door the cat bolts down the hall.  I swear that she is also snickering at me as she does this, but Kevin says I have an overactive imagination. Hmph.

The other cat, Bally, has a Buddhaesque physique and a charming personality.  He begins to purr the second you pick him up which makes it very difficult to scold him.  Bally spent most of his kittenhood attacking Cordelia--who is about a year older.   It was fairly amusing at the time despite Cordelia's obvious discomfiture.  The pet gods apparently decided that Bally needed his comeuppance.  (Either that, or Cordelia sacrificed a bird/squirrel/mole to the kitty voodoo gods.)

We adopted a rescue dog, Zack, last year.  He has decided that the cats need to be his best friends.  The cats were not too keen on this idea; therefore, Zack spends a great deal of his day chasing down the cats in a fruitless attempt to make them play with him.  Cordelia, clever little minion of Beelzebub that she is, shut down this behavior within 2 days of Zack’s arrival with a badass, ninja-like presentation of her claw skills.  Bally, on the other hand, is far too tubby to move so quickly and thus has to endure Zack’s ministrations.  Kevin and I call this karma.  Cordelia sits loftily atop of her perch on the sofa and witnesses laughs her ass off at Bally’s plight.  Zack, of course, is oblivious to the cat’s obvious reticence.  He bounds merrily after Bally day after day despite Bally’s constant attempts to rebuff him.

My animals are all kinds of insane.  And frankly, I wouldn’t have them any other way.