Why Is There a Cactus in My Shoe?

The thing about having cats is that you never know what you will find when you wake up in the morning. I've heard horror stories about half-eaten mice or half-dead birds chirping to their deaths showing up in the most unlikely places. Shoes, for example. The thought of pushing my toes into some mushy, bony, bloody mess has haunted me ever since I became a pussy lover.

So far, the pussies have been kind to me. The worst I ever found was an assortment of hairballs of various shapes and sizes (curiously, they were never the shape of a ball) and vomit of the previous night's $0.35 turkey delight with gravy.

Cats are carnivores. They eat meat. Chicken, fish, mice, cows, dragons, unicorns and assorted moving objects that bleed, such as wiggly toes. The only cats that don't hunt are the morbidly obese. Like the 45-pounder on TV the other day -- the only way that cat could move on its own is by rolling down a hill, but even then, it may only go for two seconds before its tummy stops the motion with a thunk.

So explain it to me why my cats expect a salad once in a while? And not just any salad. No. They want the best. Valentine roses are their favorite, better than chocolate. Better than sex, which by the way they have never experienced (to my best knowledge). So that's the most curious thing. Cats are actually better than little children -- they voluntarily eat their vegetables.

That's fine. Plants are cheap and they grow back, like the hair on my palms.

But it's one thing to wake up one morning, slip on the slippers and feel a wet clump of furry mush at the tips of my toes. It's another to scream bloody murder when my toes turn into tiny pincushions. Those little pricks! Somewhere in a dark corner, a pair of shiny eyes are gazing at me with the utmost affection, thinking that the prickly sensation on her sandpaper tongue must be equally welcome by the large, bumbling nitwit who wakes up three hours too late to bring her the daily sacrificial offering in a tin container. And like magic, the large, bumbling nitwit begins to dance like a wild turkey, a hand holding one foot, then stumbles and knocks down the lamp and falls face down near her just-used toilet. Then slowly she walks toward me, her face that of an angel, and grazes her bushy tail and the associated butthole against my face. She loves me. She really loves me.

After I pull the thistles off my toes, I feed the cats like a devoted mother who asks not what her children can do for her, but what she can do for the children.

The day goes on like nothing ever happened. Life goes on. Toes will heal. And you know damn well the furballs will do it again. Just never know when.

Next time, please, let it be a mouse.