Subtle Vengeance

When I come home from work he’s sitting at the door, screaming for food.

When I’m on my day off, he comes and wakes me up, earlier every day, wanting to be fed. I got up at 4am today. I refused to give him anything before 7.

He even punched me in the face once. No, really. Knocked my glasses clean off.

We’re talking about a cat who – seemingly at random – will get overexcited, work himself into a frenzy, and start tearing across our apartment full-speed. This is hilarious until he hits the end of his run and tries to do a U-turn on my damn desk.

A cat who has figured out which of his owners respects cats (me) and which of us venerates cats (my wife), and will now climb over her arm onto her open book and lay across the pages, knowing that she doesn’t want to move him.

We can’t have a tree in our house because this cat chewed on the wire ornament hangers until his mouth bled and he couldn’t eat properly. And I’m certain he blames us for that.

When our 4-year-old son has to go stand in the corner, the cat enjoys attacking his ankles, knowing he can’t fight back.

Just today, the cat was playing with one of my slippers, then he looked up, tilted his head, and punched me in the balls.

No, really. Right in the balls.

Of course he’ll tell you it was the drawstring on my pajama pants, but I’m not so sure.