As you all know, Rob is in Korea for the next 10-11 months for the US Army. We've all taken his absence hard, though Tanda and Berfert have been without their daddy before. This, however, is QC's first time with her Daddy gone. I used to think that I was her favorite human, but I'm sure Rob is and, like the other cats, I'm just a substitute for when he's not there to love them.

At first QC blamed me for Rob being gone, I'm used to that as all my family, cats and kids, blame me whenever the army sends Rob anywhere. The other cats refused to be in the same room with me for a couple of weeks and ignored me when they had to be in the same room for any reason. QC took my perfidy more personally, and peed on my side of the bed constantly. I was doing 3-4 loads of bedding a night because she'd show her loathing for me getting rid of the true daddy. After a while she calmed down and has finally quit peeing on the bed. (Now watch, she'll prove me wrong and pee on the bed tonight)

Now QC has a new hobby. When I go on the net, especially on Fridays and Saturdays when Rob and I chat, QC makes sure she's in her nest and waiting. Usually when the group gets interesting, she'll leave her nest and walk across the keyboard and demand I hug and hold her. She is usually drooling down my shoulder and slapping the monitor with her tail. She has changed the volume a couple of times. She weighs over 22 pounds, so this is a traumatic event for my keyboard. The last time, I finally got her off the keyboard, put her back on her nest and was explaining to the group, about her (they think she's funny) when she jumped on my keyboard and walked across it and lay down between the monitor and CPU. She made room for herself by pushing over the monitor and Keyboard. I was typing at a funny angle when I saw the cursor moving jaggedly across the screen. QC was pushing it around on the mouse pad (a kitten wearing sunglasses) and batting it back and forth between her paws.

You know the jokes about the cats going on line when their "owners" aren't home? I fully expect QC to open her own excite account or to start finding more cat food messages on my email. She is very interested in watching me on the computer. My question for the group is this: Should I make her get her own phone line and computer if she wants to go on line? What is the proper etiquette for on-line cat chat? What about the other cats? Do they have the right for equal time on the computer? In the event of a divorce, who gets the computer, me or the cat?

Copyright © Pam Shirk
October 27, 1999