Cats are so dramatic.

During the holidays, when my mother and her pets came to stay with me, I moved Matumbo's and Sir SImba's food and water bowls up to my room, where they'd be cloistered until Mom left, so that they wouldn't terrorize Mom's poor doggie. When Mom and her babies left, I took the food and water back downstairs to the kitchen. I noticed that, while they're eating pattern was pretty normal, the water dispenser was still pretty full. I thought to myself, hmm... maybe they liked it upstairs. So I bought a second one to put upstairs, thinking it'd be great for them to have double access to water.

Lordy, I'm a sucker.

They loved having a water dispenser upstairs, and I have become somewhat accustomed to hearing the gurgle of the dispenser dispensing more water into the bowl in the middle of the night since it was visited so frequently. I did not, however, become accustomed to walking past it and squishing through water they'd pawed over the side in some sort of Marco Polo kitty game. I thought to myself, hmmm... I'd better just go ahead and take it downstairs, and let them get used to it in the kitchen again.

What kind of fool am I?

That was Wednesday night. Matumbo reluctantly drank some water from the kitchen, but was obviously not pleased. Sir Simba, the drama king that he is, was quite another matter. Do you know that fool spent all of Wednesday night and yesterday morning rolling around in the spot where the water was upstairs, yowling and coughing? When that didn't work, he resorted to abstaining. He refused to drink water, and immediately his skin became dry and chapped, and his meows became pitiful.

Last night was worthy of an Academy Award. I saw him listlessly sprawled out in the water spot as I breezed by on my way to bed. He raised a paw up to me weakly, as if to say, "Please, lady...don't you see I'm dying?" Matumbo didn't help. He came over and gave Sir Simba's head a couple of licks, working that supporting role for all he was worth. I thought to myself, "I'm queen of this castle! I don't have to do what they say... they're not the boss of me."

I shoulda known better.

At approximately 2:O0AM, Sir Simba began coughing and wheezing from his sleeping spot on the stairs. Yanked out of my sleep, I stumbled over to him, nearly flying headfirst down the stairs. I carried him, hugging and kissing him, to the kitchen and dropped him in front of the water bowl. He glared at it then up at me as I made my way back to bed, the house no longer wracked with the sound of coughing.

At 3:45AM, I was once again yanked out of my sleep by a loud crash, followed by the unmistakable sound of plastic and paper rustling about. I rushed downstairs to the kitchen, righted the trashcan, put everything back in it, and mopped the floor. Sir Simba sat in the doorway, all but smiling.

At 5:40AM, yeowling and meowing as I'd never heard before echoed through my home. It was the sound of a cat in the biggest depression of his life. The sound echoed with the force of a sonic boom through the condo and through my brain. Instead of rushing downstairs to him, I rushed into the kitchen, grabbed the water dispenser, filled it up, and put back in the water spot upstairs.

I've not heard a peep since. [sigh]

Copyright © Victoria Calvillo
February 9, 2002

Read Victoria's other story: The New Bedspread