I just can't figure this out.

We buy toilet paper in bulk to keep the cost down. It comes in a big plastic wrapper, with individually wrapped four-roll packages inside. We have two bathrooms, one upstairs and one down. The downstairs bathroom is pretty informal -- which is a nice way of saying the people who started it didn't finish it, and neither have we (yet), so there's no cabinet or sink to hide the package of toilet paper in or under. Our upstairs bathroom is fully-equipped. I usually break open the package up there, put a roll on the dispenser and stow the other ones under the sink. Downstairs, there's nowhere to put the spares, so I just set the pack against the wall, in reach, and leave it until it's needed.

The last three times I brought a pack down to the lower bathroom, it was before we'd reached 'emergency status' (the linen closet is up on the third level of our tri-level), so it sat against the wall for at least half a day before it was opened. All three times, when I finally did open the package, I found a series of gentle bite marks on one of the top rolls. None of the paper or plastic will have been eaten -- merely teethed. These kids range from a year and a half to three years -- nobody's teething, at this point. No shredding, no apparent violence -- just several mysterious bite marks.

Once the wrapper is open, the threat seems to be defused because none of them messes with it, after that.

None of my cats has ever played 'confetti party' or unrolled toilet paper from the dispenser. They don't seem to think of the toilet paper as a toy. All three will lick plastic bags from time to time, and Doodle even likes to crawl in them (which is why they aren't left lying around). None of them eats toilet paper, and though Tink will eat plastic, the wrapper is usually intact except for the fang-holes.

I can only conclude one of our cats has secretly been traumatized, at some point in time, by a vicious package of toilet paper and is engaging in a desensitization campaign by bravely gnawing on each wrapper as I put it in the bathroom, but can only bring him or herself to take a few bites before the anxiety grows too great and s/he must stop and run away. Judging from the size of the bites, it's not Doodle -- and if it was Tink, I'm pretty sure she'd eat the plastic. Poor Gord -- there must be more to his history than even I suspect.

Either that, or Tink's always been right about the invisible wolverines. She's always been obsessively fastidious about covering her tracks in the litter box, empty plates or bowls, hairballs, or anything else that would give another animal a hint she'd been there.

Anybody got an invisible wolverine trap I can borrow? Just in case, y'know.

Copyright © Melinda Nowikowski
October 28, 2000