Naughty Mr. Cero Baby-Cat

Mr Jones has always had a cat. He is a sucker for those little fur heads.  I however, have always been a little weary of cats and not much for animals in general but one morning  a friend of mine called me up and said they were looking for someone to take a cat they had gotten from the pound.  The cat was too "active" for their other cat and his wife said it had to go that very night or it was going back to the pound. My heart strings were pulled, a little kitty going to the pound? Mr Jones had been super stressed because our baby was only 3 months old at the time and had a cry like a jet engine and he was starting a new semester of Medical School, so I knew he could use something to cheer him up. I ended up telling them to bring the cat by and we would see how it went. Well Mr Jones got that scrawny little orange kitty in his arms and I knew he would never let me send it back to the pound so we had ourselves a new cat fresh off the streets of Miami.

When they dropped off the cat they told me they had been calling him Trouble which should have been a hint of what I was getting myself into,  but I was either too thick or to blinded by the ooos and ahhs of my family to get it. Cero (See-Row, as invented by Miss K) started out super mellow,  he was the ideal kitty for a whole week. He was super playful and he let the children do whatever to him with only gentle banter back. He would sit on Mr Jones' lap while he studied for hours on end and keep me company in the evening when  husband was studying and kids were sleeping.  Besides the pooping and the shedding that such animals tend to do, he was alright for a cat.

Then started the scratching. We have the highest quality pleather furniture so every tiny little scratch made a lasting mark.  "KITTY, I bought you a scratching post look! Here it is, it's your friend scratch it!"  Looks at me, looks at the scratching post, runs back to the couch and scratches it to mock me.
Spray bottle time. . . it worked in the day for a while, now he just looks at you when you spray him and licks up the water.  Every night I would hear the skitter scatter of little claws running laps around the house back and forth, back and forth, scratch scratch scratch, pounce CRASH, tic tic tic tic.  What is that cat DOING? At this point our little baby boy won't sleep more than 2 hrs in a row so the cat in combination with the baby, is keeping me up ALL night. Every time I walk out to feed the baby in a blind stupor Cero would go all out ninja on me and attack my legs with batting and biting.  It didn't hurt but it scared the fart of me every time. (actually, he still does this every time I come out at night over a year later) About a month after that Mr Jones is all, Honey what happened to the couch?   Which is now thread bare in all the corners and looks like it has developed a bumpy rash all along the top.  My answer was that wee need to get that little brat de-clawd so I hopped on the internet to find out how much I could expect to pay.   I proceeded to read about how heartless and evil I was for even considering it and the animal lover people convinced me that I should not chop of the little dudes toes for the sake of my furniture. Next, I buy more scratching posts and toys and scratch this not that sprays, but Cat LOVES couch, it is his best friend.  We put blankets up he took them off. Nothing can keep kitty from cooling his under belly with our pleather.   We bought soft paws and he bit them right off. We shut doors to keep him out of certain rooms, HE LEARNED HOW TO OPEN THE DOORS,  the doors he couldn't open he would meow and scratch at until we opened them. He learned how to open the kitchen cabinets and left cat hair all over my dishes.  Considering the wild animal digs in his own potty, that would have been the final straw but cat is just so good with the kids and Mr Jones loves him so much that we couldn't get rid of him because he is part of our family and when it comes down to it I love him too... Kind of.

Now Mr Baby Cat is Staying in CA with the in-laws eating their toilet paper and staring out the window because my mom, who's basement we currently live in was, understandably, not willing to risk Cero liking my Grandma's micro fiber couch as much as our pleather one. So he lives in Mr H's old room where they built him a obstacle course and a belly cooling platform. When it comes down to it I miss the little guy, how could you not love this face just a little?

 I wrote this post about a year ago- I'm super good at blogging guys-  Cat- as he is usually now called, is back with his beloved Mr Jones and I will be posting more about his shenanigans periodically.