Uncle Louie just tried to open the grandchild’s birthday present, which I had left on the stairs. I said, “Hey!” and he went and sat on the rug. I should tell you about Uncle Louie, who is my cat. I have probably told you about him before. I won’t let that stop me.
When I take a nap, Louie comes upstairs and lies on the bed next to me. But when I go to bed at night, he comes up for a little bit, then leaves and goes downstairs to get one of his toys. He brings it upstairs, howling eerily, and drops it next to me. Then he does it again. I only leave two toys out at night because otherwise I wouldn’t get any sleep. I put the ones he brings me under my pillow, or he would play with them in the middle of the night.
Uncle Louie owns my armchair. He also owns my lap, but there are times when he’s done with my lap and wants the armchair, whereupon he sits on me with his stubby tail lashing against my legs, staring sternly into the distance, until I get up and give it to him.
A few times a day, I play with him, using a little stuffed toy on a string attached to a stick. This usually takes five to ten minutes: 20 seconds or so of frenziedly chasing the toy, leaping and turning, until he seizes it, and then some minutes of gripping the toy fiercely in his mouth, moaning, hunching up his body, and parading back and forth between the rug and the shoes next to the door while I follow him because the stick is still in my hand. Then he loses interest, drops it, and walks away.
He has an immense chest and strong bones. He likes to eat. But in the mornings, when the automatic wet-food feeder goes off, he eats half his food and then comes upstairs to get me up so he can eat the rest. He’s patient. He’ll sit there until the automatic feeder closes back up. This morning I had to get up and rush downstairs to scrape the leftovers onto a saucer.
He’s ten years old. I got him from a shelter where they had his name wrong and he was stuck in a cage with the other cat from his house. They were not bonded. This meant Louie didn’t eat or drink for his entire stay there. He was eight years old, and it wasn’t fair.
Louie doesn’t like being picked up, even though I have to pick him up to put him down in my armchair when I surrender it. He struggles every time. Then I put him down and he stays there as if he never struggled, ever. It is beneath his dignity to struggle.
He has large, clear green eyes and is a black-and-gray-striped tabby. My adult kid calls him a shoebox cat, because he is sort of rectangular in outline.
When strangers come into the house, like the family members who come over every week, he scuttles into hiding. He also moans and departs when I turn on my induction cooktop, because he can hear it whining and because he knows it means family is coming over.
He sleeps most of the day. He seems to like it that way. I call him Uncle Louie because he’s a judgmental old family member with set habits who moved in with me at some point and then stayed. Everyone who knows him agrees that he is an uncle.
I have never had an uncle like that in my life until now, mind you.
Uncle Louie is sitting on the rug right now, his paws tucked under him, staring at me. You see, this morning, though I have already fed him and played with him, I have not yet sat in my armchair, with him in my lap, reading for a half hour, which is a requirement. I will go and do that now. Sorry, Uncle Louie.