The Bed

When JM first brought Joey to my home last week, she purchased a few necessary essentials, such as a litter box, cat food, and kitty litter. She also acquired a luxury item, that being a soft, plush, beige cat bed for Joey to curl up into on those nights when we all gathered around the television set to watch the newest episode of MTV's "Jersey Shore."

Upon Joey's arrival, JM warned me that never before had he taken to using a kitty crib in past attempts, and that the outlook for its use in this reincarnation was not too bright.

On Joey's first night at my domicile, we placed the bed on the floor in the living room by the secondary black leather couch, perpendicular to the couch on which we jointly sat.

Like a bikini-clad Gisele Bundchin strolling down the streets of San Francisco's Castro district, its existence was hardly acknowledged.

Over the next few days we moved the bed throughout various locations in the quarters, including Joey's previously blogged-about "sweet spots."

Instead of accepting the soft lounging utensil as a warm-hearted gift from a loving mother, Joey instead began to shun his formerly favorite napping locales.

At one point, JM even tried rubbing the bed all over her body, so that it possessed a familiar scent to Joey.

Still nothing.

I offered that perhaps JM should have taken a shower first.

Over the next few days the bed idly sat in a corner of my office, reveling in its loneliness. This was when I decided that enough was enough. I placed the bed in Joey's latest sweet spot on the aforeblogged (and yes I just made that word up) papasan chair. At first, Joey peered his big brown head up to the black cushion of the chair and saw the foreboding bed in his spot. He then proceeded to sniff at it and ultimately sauntered away, only to curl up by a nearby sliding door window.

Later that day, Joey returned to inspect the scene once more. Upon finding the bed to continue to occupy his preferred site, he then sat up in front of the chair and meowed incessantly, while simultaneously turning his head backwards to look at me as I worked at my desk. It was almost as if I could telepathically hear him say, "What the frack, dude?"

For the rest of the day, I would oblige this request, as I grew weary of listening to his annoying meows while trying to work. We started to play a game of cat-and-mouse, making me the "Mickey" of this situation.

I place bed on papasan chair. Joey cries until I remove it. Joey naps. Joey wakes up and leaves the office. I put the bed back on the papasan chair.

Rinse and repeat.

This continued for two days, until I had a scary revelation. I realized that I was giving in way too easily to Joey's demands. I started having flash-forwards to having a child one day and always giving in to its crying, thereby spoiling it and turning it into "Snooki 2.o" by the year 2030.

So I decided to put my foot down and ignore Joey's subsequent pleas for bed relocation. For the next 24 hours, he constantly whined whenever he wanted to climb onto the papasan chair. However, I changed my strategic tactic and instead stood my ground while ignoring the screeching audible appeals.

The next day, while working at my desk, I happened to catch Joey climb onto the papasan chair out of the corner of my eye. He then sniffed the fabric of the bed and kneaded it with his paws. As I watched curiously, I recalled JM once informing me that before Joey ever decided to lay on a malleable item, be it a human lap or a couch cushion, he would knead its surface to check if it was level. To this day I still think he's checking to see if it can handle his substantial body weight and not crush under his two tons of fur. But whatever. To-ma-to, to-mah-to.

Joey's investigation continued for approximately two minutes. Then, as if a strong gust of wind had just blown through the room, Joey suddenly plopped down on the bed and commenced to nap.

I then excitedly emailed JM at work with the the good news. Joey finally accepted the bed as a creature comfort, instead of treating it like an arch rival. Afterwards, I sat back and beamed from ear to ear as I watched Joey sleep in the bed. "Victory!" I thought in my head, doing my best Johnny Drama impersonation.

Then I quickly and suddenly rolled my chair back from the desk as I stared at a peaceful Joey. In my head I quickly thought, "Whoa. This is the highlight of my day. What is happening to me?"

And from the sound of my moving chair, Joey poked his head up and stared at me with his green beady little eyes, as if to say, "Yeah, you may have won the battle. But I'll be winning the war."

The Crazy Cat: Update

Last you heard from me, I was a prisoner in my own home.

I'm going to rewind to that precise moment.

So I spent the next four hours behind a locked door and attempted to distract myself by throwing my brain, which was still in flight or fight mode, into my work.

As hard as I tried to concentrate on the task at hand, my mind kept wandering off into wild fantasies, like I was J.D. in "Scrubs." I kept replaying a particularly odd scenario in my head. In this daydream, Joey was busy harnessing a booby trap that consisted of a single, lonely Reese's Peanut Butter Cup (my favorite candy) casually sitting on the ground just on the other side of my office door. I pictured myself opening the door, finding the delicious treat, and bending over to pick it up. As soon as my hand extended to pick up the chocolatey goodness, Joey, who was situated on the other end of the hallway, would yank on a fat piece of rope that would catch me around my wrist and string me up from the ceiling. Than, as I struggled to free myself, Joey would run wild through the house, creating havoc and hysteria, while leaving a trail of kitty litter in his wake. Meanwhile I would be sentenced to my own personal hell, consisting of observing Joey's demolition derby without having the ability to stop him.

Suddenly, I snapped back to reality. I shook my head back and forth to awaken me from the crazy stupor, and I tried to comfort myself by uttering the words, "It's just a cat... it's just a cat."

As I buried my head in my work, little did I realize how quickly time had passed. Suddenly I felt a grumbling in my stomach, glanced at the clock, and noticed that it was lunch time.

I decided to venture outside of the office for the first time since, what has now been called "the incident." When I opened the door, Joey was simply lying indolently just outside. He carelessly looked up at me and gave me a "sup dude" head nod.

I walked downstairs, prepared my lunch, and brought it back to my office. By this point Joey had curled up on the papasan chair near my desk and fallen asleep.

"Crisis averted," I said aloud.

Joey poked his head up from the oversized black cushion and gave me a long glance.

"For now..." I grumbled and went back to work.

The Crazy Cat

I am scared.

I'm a 32-year old man who has holed himself up in his office like Jodie Foster in "Panic Room."

How did I get here, you ask?

I wish I knew.

So JM has been out of town for a business trip since Monday. Thus Joey and I have been at home alone doing the male bonding thing, and we've gotten into a groove.

During the day, Joey snoozes blissfully in a corner of my office as I feverishly work. At night I carry my MBA textbooks downstairs and into the living room, flip the television set to a random college basketball game, and commence reading as Joey positions his furry back against my left thigh and slumbers once more. At night when I retire to bed, Joey curls up next to me for even more naps. I call them "naps" when I'm asleep because I can hear him awakening and leaving the room several times throughout the hours of darkness. Whenever he decides to join me once more, he always pounces on the bed and lands on my legs or chest, thereby startling me into thinking an intruder has entered my abode and attacked me.

Not exactly the best way to wake up.

Joey's returns always leave my heart beating like I just gulped down a Monster energy drink. Meanwhile, Joey coils his body into a big brown ball and temporarily dozes off next to me as I stare at him in a state of groggy anger. (Note to self: If I ever start a band, I'm going to call it "Groggy Anger.")

Everything was going fine with our little routine until today.

I knew something was amiss when I woke up this morning, and Joey kept rapidly scurrying away from me as I walked by him while getting ready for a new work day. However, later in the morning he plopped down next to me as I sat in my office chair and conducted a business call. This was a sure fire sign that he wanted to hop aboard my lap and hang out. Though I was on the telephone, and I have been training him to understand that I cannot give him the attention he so desperately craves while conducting live business, I decided to make an exception in hopes to calm him from his previously agitated state.

Joey proceeded to quietly have a siesta while I spoke on the phone for the next 45 minutes. When the call finished, I extricated Joey from my lap and went downstairs to make some breakfast. Joey gleefully followed me into the kitchen.

That's when all hell started to break loose.

As I prepared a protein shake, I heard a distinct scratching sound emanating from the game room. I peered over the kitchen bar and saw Joey gliding his claws up and down a closed closet door next to my pool table. I loudly shooed him away and returned to preparing my meal. Seconds later, Joey began pawing away at the downstairs bathroom door, which too was closed shut. I tranquilly walked over to Joey and proclaimed, "What are you doing, buddy?"

Apparently Joey took this as a sign that I was ready to wage war and dashed away from me and up the stair case. I was left standing alone, jaw agape, wondering if I had pulled a Rip Van Winkle and suddenly awoke in December 21, 2012.

Minutes later I carried my breakfast upstairs. Joey rushed from the head of the stairs, where he nonchalantly sat, to the closed master bedroom door down the hallway. As I placed my food on my office desk, I heard him once again scraping his claws along a door down the hall. Like nails on a chalkboard, the sound sent shivers down my spine.

At this point I decided that enough was enough. I casually ventured into the hallway in order to monitor his behavior for a bit. When I turned a corner, I saw Joey sitting upright by the same closed master bedroom door. I slowly approached him and reached out to pet his back in an attempt to comfort him. As my hand steadily approached his wooly torso, he bolted through my legs like a flash of lighting and scuttled down the stairs in order to get away.

This was when I stepped into the master bathroom to inspect myself in the mirror. Had I turned into a scary Shrek-ian ogre since yesterday?

Besides a bad case of bed head, I appeared to look normal.

So I turned around and ambled back down the hallway. That was when I saw Joey standing on his back legs and scratching the wall along the bottom of the stair case. At that moment, Joey and I made eye contact. His green beady eyes seemed to stare past my retinas and deep within my soul. It was as if he could sense the mix of confusion and fright that existed within my being. And just like that, he rushed up the stairs and towards me like I was a matador holding up a red cape.

Freaked out by the sight of a chubby critter chasing me down, I let out a girlish shriek, turned around and sprinted into my office while slamming the door shut behind me.

Within a jiffy I heard him scratching on my office door.

"He wants to kill me and feast on my flesh," I thought as I huddled my body in a corner of the room and sought out weapons to stave off an eminent attack.

Despite his audible pleadings, I refused to open the door. That was when I decided to call JM and leave her a four-word voice mail.

"Joey has gone crazy."

It has now been 20 minutes since I was turned into a captive in my own home, and there has been nothing but eerie silence from the other side of the door.

Something is afoot.

If you don't see another blog post by this weekend, please call the authorities.

The Nails

Joey needs his nails clipped, immediately.

Last Friday morning, as I sat at my desk and got lost in my work, I could hear Joey softly purring to my left. I glanced over and saw him sitting at the very edge of my black leather office chair, staring at me quizzically with his head tilted to the side.

Though we had been roommates for nary a week, I already knew what this look meant. Joey wanted to spend some leisure time in my lap, hoping to get lucky.

Now get your minds out of the gutter, people! We're not talking bestiality here! In Joey's world, "getting lucky" means getting some attention through a vigorous stroking of his backside.

Hmm... probably a bad choice of words.

Nevertheless, I rolled my chair backwards on its four wheels and gave Joey ample room to hop aboard.

I've noticed it always takes him two distinct motions to jump the 18 inches from the ground to my lap. The first gesture results in Joey leaving his hind paws on the carpeted floor and stretching his front paws to the edge of my chair's unforgiving, taut cushion, freezing in that position for a few seconds. This action is akin to Evel Knievel recording the size of Snake Canyon with the world's largest tape measure. It's easy to tell that Joey is getting his bearings before making the final leap into my lap.

Then his hind quarters start to shiver. Its almost as if you can see the potential energy in his legs transfer into kinetic energy. Then in one foul swoop his front paws let go of my chair and he bursts into the air only to land squarely in my lap.

Once he has the chance to get situated, I then pull my chair closer to the desk and commence working once more.

These events had transpired constantly throughout the week with nary a problem.

Until Friday morning, when Joey decided that he had tired of the comfortable confines of my lap earlier than usual and, much like Nic Cage, was gone in 60 seconds.

Whenever Joey decides he is ready to roam the great plains of my house once more, he stands up with his front paws on one of my thighs and his back paws on the other thigh. He then places pressure on my legs and leaps back to the ground.

On Friday, as Joey went through his traditional exit strategy, I bore the brunt of his long nails, which dug deeply into my fleshy thighs, causing excessive pain.

I did my best G.O.B. impersonation and yelled "COME ON!"

Joey scurried out the office faster than Usain Bolt.

Memo to self: Tell JM to use my tainted nail clippers and give Joey's paws a vigorous once-over. I would do it myself, but I'm nowhere near comfortable enough with Joey to even give it the old college try. I still have flash backs of the "almost bite" sailing through my head.

The Sweet Spots

So Joey has been here for a week now and he appears to be rummaging through the house in search of an ideal lounging spot.

Just like with housing, when you nap all day, apparently location is key.

Let's rewind for a moment.

Before Joey arrived last Monday night, I decided to tidy up the downstairs hall closet where his litter box would be situated. For many years it had been filled with shoes, a vacuum cleaner, and a random assortment of other goods and knick-knacks. I had to clean out the room to make space for Joey's future commode. In order to do so, I had to turn on the little used chandelier right above the front door, to give me ample visibility within the closet.

Once Joey arrived, I forgot to turn the chandelier light off.

After the fat rascal circumnavigated the house to get comfortable with his new digs, JM and I noticed that he plopped his gargantuan furry body in a giant ball at the end of the upstairs hallway, just a few feet away from the aforementioned chandelier that dangled from the ceiling. To help you envision the sight in your head, all of the upstairs hallways have slotted guard railings that let you see downstairs. In this case, the end of the hallway where Joey was unwinding had a perfect view of said chandelier, right at his eye line.

I found this behavior to be rather curious, and I inquired JM as to why he might have chosen that particular spot as his "sweet spot."

JM explained that Joey loved basking in the hot white glow of the sun. She continued by proclaiming that he was not the sharpest tool in the shed and likely was confusing the light emanating from the chandelier as sunlight.

Being the nice guy that I am, I decided to leave the little used chandelier light on for Joey's first few days so that he could get comfortable with his new surroundings. If he'd found a spot he liked, the last thing I wanted to do was take it away. Plus, the less he traveled around the house, the less chance there was for damage to the abode. (So maybe I'm not THAT nice and actually had a hidden agenda in mind).

However, by the end of last week I came to the conclusion that I was wasting precious energy and once my light bill arrived in the mail later in the month, I'd likely be cursing Joey's name in vain. (But what's new?)

So, by Thursday morning I turned the light off for good. Within hours I noticed that Joey no longer enjoyed settling down in his sweet spot.

Yet being the resourceful feline that he is, I realized that by the end of that same day, when the sun seemingly disappeared from Joey's little world, he had identified a new relaxation destination.

In my office, where I sit and slave away for hours each day, there sits to the left of my desk a papasan chair that my parents bought for me back when I was a struggling college student. The chair sits adjacent to a large sliding glass door window, whose curtains I keep open in the day to provide some natural light to my otherwise dreary work environment.

What I've observed over the last several days is that Joey has taken to curling up in a big ball on this chair for hours on end while I work. He naps, then he awakens and glances around the room to get his bearings. When he sees no imminent danger is present and that I continue to sit at my desk like a sucker while he sleeps all day, his substantial brown head falls back down again in a loud thump and he enters a dream state within seconds.

Now if only I could get Joey to sleep on that chair each night... but alas that's a tale left for another day.

The Kryptonite

Yesterday morning, as I made my first protein shake of the day, I decided that it was time to give the carpets in my house a vigorous cleansing courtesy of my trusty red Bissell vacuum cleaner.

I believe I've mentioned my self-diagnosed OCD in previous blog posts, so the aforementioned thought process should really come as no surprise to any of you. On top of that, the carpets had not been vacuumed since Joey's arrival, meaning the fibers were intertwined with an inordinate amount of cat hair. A nervous facial tick was beginning to form in the corner of my mouth from the mere thought of the amount of filthy matter wedged into my carpet over the course of the last five days.

As I pulled the vacuum cleaner out of an upstairs closet in my office, I passed by a casually napping Joey with his body hugged along a window, looking like a peaceful angel who was secretly plotting my demise.

I quietly transported the vacuum cleaner to the master bedroom to begin my ritualistic cleaning. Yes, I have a systematic order by which I vacuum the rooms of the house - always beginning with the master bath.

Don't judge me!

As I tiptoed down the hallway and distanced myself from Joey, I recalled JM telling me that he had an enormous fear of vacuum cleaners and would often run and hide instantly upon hearing the roaring 12 amp motor of a ferocious carpet cleansing device.

Needless to say that she was absolutely correct.

By the time I finished with the master bedroom and bathroom, the vacuum cleaner and I moseyed our way down the halls and back into my office. As expected Joey was no longer napping window-side and had disappeared. Fifteen minutes later I completed the task at hand and began my search for Joey in earnest.

After operating a search and rescue mission that would make Jack Bauer proud, I ultimately found him hiding under my bed, protecting himself amongst the deep recesses of the shrouded darkness and miscellaneous boxes that had accumulated over the years. It was almost as if Joey had built his own "Fortress of Solitude" behind the tan bed skirt that draped my box spring.

I reached out to Joey with an olive branch. "Come on buddy. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" I proclaimed in my best impersonation of FDR.

Joey blinked once, yet no other muscle in his body even hinted at making a move.

I decided to leave him be and realized he would return to the public spotlight once he was comfortable that all "danger" was no more.

When Joey finally returned back to my office, with his head on a swivel like a furry little Hines Ward after an Ed Reed interception, I glanced at the clock and realized that over five hours had transpired since the vacuum cleaner was powered down.

You've tipped your hand, Joe. I now know your weakness.

The Wet Spot

On Tuesday night, I had to leave the house for a group study session with some fellow students in the McCombs MBA program. JM was still at work, and thus Joey was designated to be left home alone in my abode for the first time in his life. To say I was a bit nervous about having a strange animal wander through my tidy quarters unsupervised would be akin to saying that Sidney Prescott was nervous every time the phone rang in her Woodsboro, CA home (That's an obscure "Scream" reference for those of you who haven't seen it or don't waste your precious hippocampus with obscure movie trivia.)

I left the house for a few hours and upon my return did not see JM’s car in the garage. Thus, I knew that Joey had been left alone for the entire duration of my absence. As I parked my car and gathered my belongings, I began to envision the whirlwind of destruction awaiting me, sort of like a post-apocalyptic Mad Max landscape with Joey dressed in a leather jacket wielding a pistol.

I proceeded to slowly open the door between the garage and the house. As its squeaky hinges creaked, I softly whispered, “Joey? Where are you? Is everything ok?”

Within an instant, I heard a delicate meowing emanating from upstairs. I dropped my belongings in the hallway and marched forward to investigate. What I saw was a forlorn feline sitting in the darkness of the night and looking at me with eyes of abandon.

Relieved by the seeming lack of damage, I strutted back downstairs to unpack my laptop and to put it back in its rightful place on the countertop dividing the breakfast area and the living room. As I approached the designated computer spot, laptop en tow, the cold, hard tile beneath my feet quickly turned into the wet, cold, hard tile, with a mysterious liquid spreading between my toes.

The first thought to course through my mind, before my eyes even had a chance to gaze at the ground, was “did this fucking cat just pee on my floor????”

Just then, my neck snapped downwards in one foul swoop, and I found before me an enormous puddle of liquid all over the ground. I glanced to my left and saw that Joey’s food bowl had been knocked over and its contents were scattered all over the white tile floor, as if a young child had just received a brand new puzzle and tossed all of the jagged pieces on a small coffee table. Curiously enough, however, Joey’s water bowl remained upright, albeit with a tiny amount of liquid housed within.

Like a good crime scene investigator, I tried to comprehend the sight before me. I took a few steps back and just gazed at the entire area, soaking in every detail. After a few seconds (and an embarrassingly quick sniff of the spilled liquid on the ground), I came to the conclusion that somehow Joey tipped over his water bowl, leading to a flash flood within a five-foot radius. However, I was confused as to why the water bowl was still upright but the food bowl was knocked over.

It was almost as if Joey had inadvertently knocked the water bowl over earlier that evening and thought to himself, “Meow meow. The tall brown anal guy will kill me if he knows I spilled water everywhere. I know. I’ll make it look like the water bowl has a crack or hole in it and he won’t blame me. In fact, I’ll knock my food container over so he will think I slipped in the puddle and slid into it, thereby sprinkling kitty chow everywhere! He’ll feel sorry for me thinking I injured myself due to HIS negligence! Meow.”

Having realized Joey's modus operandi, I then dutifully picked up the water bowl to inspect it for structural integrity flaws, but found nothing.

I then yelled at Joey upstairs, “I’m on to your little game, you rascal! You thought you’d get away with it, didn’t you?” sounding like an old-timey detective from a random 1940s mystery flick.

He just sat in silence at the top of the stairs, enveloped by the dimness of the witching hour. I knew that his lack of purring or meowing was a sure sign of guilt.

Joey had just been caught, wet-handed.