Stuff On My Cat

I was originally going to put together an article called "10 Ways to Confuse (or Annoy) your Cat". I jotted down a few ideas and was going to make a list around the premise. As I started thinking of ideas I couldn't help but wonder how Carl would react to some of these situations. So instead of putting up the list I figured I would take a whack at some of the ideas. Today I bring you the first of such experiments. I call this one The Switch.

I keep Carl's food, water and litter box in a separate room from the rest of the apartment. Some folks like to call it the "pantry", I call it the food bunker. As you'd expect Carl makes countless trips there a day to eat, drink and take care of business. On the rare chance he has food, water and a clean litter box all at the same time it looks a little something like this...

Carl's setup has been like this since day one. And unless I move, get evicted, Carl kills me or my apartment slides down a mountain it'll stay this way. He's a cat, why would he suspect anything else? Today, however, will be different. We're gonna turn his world upside down. 

First up? His food dispenser.

What if everything Carl has grown to know and love was suddenly different? What if after chewing on some killer 'nip he got the munchies for Science Diet only to find it replaced with kitty litter? Or his kitty litter replaced with water? Think Freaky Friday with more cat food...and less Lindsay Lohan. Also, before we begin and in case you guys were curious, I thoroughly cleaned everything before and after the experiment. No need to worry. 

I started off by emptying all of his food into a bag.

Once that was taken care of I got some (clean) multi-cat and poured it into the dispenser. I did an extra careful job to deliberately sprinkle litter all over the ground to add character to my bland and unoriginal floor. Success.

Now for his throne...

I emptied it out, gave it a solid scrubbing and filled it with several pitchers of water.

Lastly we have his water dispenser. Now it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense swapping water for food, since they're both dispensers, right? That would defeat the purpose. I'm trying to confuse Carl here, not just let him have easy access to his food just in a different container. So I scoured around the apartment for a suitable replacement and came up with this...

It was either that or my car keys. I wanted the dinosaur to send one very clear message:

I am not your drinking water.

Water, food, litter box. Check, check and check. I was all done. Seconds after I finished up in there Carl notices that I've spent a extraordinary amount of time in the food bunker. He approaches with curiosity...and suspicion. 

What are you taking pictures for? What's all this commotion about? You must have gotten me wet food like I always beg for! His hopes and dreams of a gourmet meal quickly vanished.

Carl finally goes inside and as he approaches his private sanctuary he realizes something is...off.

When Carl first walked in he was truly dumb founded. As soon as he noticed something new in his food dispenser he stopped in his tracks and stared straight at it in a cat-like trance. He looked at it as if to either attempt to stare directly through it or to somehow communicate with it with his thoughts. Whatever he was doing he was way into it. He eventually snapped out of it and realized where he was. You know when you walk into a room to get something but something else grabs your attention and you forgot what you went there for? Like that, but imagine your refrigerator was replaced with your toilet. 

After he snapped out of it he started to aggressively sniff the contents of his food dispenser. He nearly buried his face in the stuff. When he was finished investigating he looked my way I noticed a little something sticking to his upper lip...

Hilarious. Next he started to investigate what was sitting in his water dispenser. 

He was less intrigued with this than anything else. It didn't keep his attention for too long and to be honest, I don't blame him. Dinosaurs are cool as hell and shouldn't be questioned if one happens to mysteriously appear out of thin air. Even cats know that. After coming to the realization that both his water and food had been tampered with the next logical step for him was to check out his litter box. He wandered over to his litter box and spent an OBSCENE amount of time pondering it's existence.

He must have done eight double takes of the situation. He would poke his head inside, look around and leave only to come back a few seconds later. At this point I was convinced that I had truly blown his mind. I think he was having some sort of religious experience in there. I wasn't able to capture it on camera, but at one point he took his head out of the dome, looked at me and gave me a meow unlike any meow I've ever heard from him before. A meow that wreaked of desperation and confusion. After he was done with his litter box he made his way back to the food dispenser. Much to my surprise he started to paw at it. 

At first I thought it was a sign of protest. He was defiantly making a mess in order to get back at me. I would later find out this was not the case. After a while Carl started using both of his paws for maximum digging efficiency. 

The amount of litter in the dispenser was sinking at a rapid rate. As you can see from the photo below. 

I was so distracted taking the above picture I didn't have time to react to what Carl would do next. It was then when he made it crystal clear exactly what he thought of my experiment. When I looked back I found him doing this...

Well played Carl, well played. I sat there for a second and thought about what is happening. In a matter of seconds the tables had completely turned on me. In one single act Carl caught me off guard and gained the upper hand. It was cold, calculated and unforeseen.

Carl looked at me straight in the eyes as if to say "I shouldn't cover this up, but I will". He was the truly the bigger man that day and hid the evidence. 

This is what was left of the aftermath. The first experiment has been completed and whether or not it was a success depends on who you ask. Either way, I've learned to never underestimate Carl again. After what I've seen today I have no idea what this cat is capable of. Before I started to clean things up I wanted to even things out with Carl.

 Until next time.