Infestation

My house is absolutely crawling with mysterious creatures. As I lay in bed at night, I hear them scratching at the door. They’re nocturnal, and I’m fairly sure they’re mammalian. While these creatures have not, as yet, posed imminent threat to my life, they have ravished my apartment; I find evidence of their violence in the form of shredded clothing, torn upholstery, and the general strewing about of my belongings.

No, I’m not crazy; I have cats. But then again, is there a difference?

Those of you who have cats, think on this: when was the last time you looked at them? I mean really looked at them. I did so the other day, and I realized something I had never noticed before when they were scurrying around the house, hiding my Chap Stick and ruining my sideboards:

They’re killing machines.

That’s right. Miniature killing machines that play with yarn.

And bottlecaps. And keys, and fragile trinkets (or rather, the pieces of fragile trinkets they have knocked off the top shelf).

I mean, look at them. Retractable claws. Lithe, agile bodies designed for stalking and pouncing. Sharp teeth in strong jaws. These things could fucking eat me.

I used to watch my kitten (Toby) playing with Stanley the Sock Monkey and think (against all my alpha male instincts), “How cute!” He’d pounce on Stanley, get him in his little paws, and worry at him with his hind legs.

But now that I’ve seen him for the death-machine he is, I’ve finally realized what he was really doing with those hind legs: trying to tear into Stanley’s throat. All that cute bouncing and flipping about was, in reality, a psychotic urge to act out the murder of another creature.

Let me elaborate: Stanley is sitting on the carpet, minding his sock monkey business. Toby stalks Stanley in the low grass (shag), creeping up behind Stan while his little yarn eyes aren’t looking. He wiggles his butt (how cute!), but what he’s really doing is finding good purchase so that he can leap on Stanley before he has time to react (though, being a sock monkey, Stanley has notoriously slow reflexes). He pounces, pins Stanley down with his front paws, and proceeds to go straight for the jugular (he has an uncanny knack for guessing just where the jugular would be on an animal that has, for all intents and purposes, no neck), ripping at the throat flesh.

Then, when Stanley has finally given up his useless struggling (flopping), Toby bitch-slaps him to see if he’s still moving. Stanley slides a short distance, and Toby pounces again, pinning the defenseless sock monkey to the ground, crushing any hope of escape. Then he smacks Stanley like he owes him money again (with enough force to crush his skull, if he had one) and pins him. This goes on for several minutes, until Toby gets bored and finds some other stuffed whatnot to torture.

I’m telling you, Hannibal Lecter had nothing on my cats, and I’ve allowed not one, but two of these creatures to sleep in my house (well, on my head, to be specific). These things are crawling around while I am asleep and unsuspecting. And my only weapon is a water gun.

It’s amazing I’ve lived this long.