Why Sussie Why??!!

I have a cat. Or rather a big kitten since she turns 1 in September.

Her name is Sussie. She is black with ears too big for her tiny pixie face.


My Sussie is cute, not too cuddly (yet), loves the attention we shower her and has recently grown a liking to climbing onto me when I'm lying in bed and settling down either on my tummy, chest or between my legs. She hasn't gotten round to climbing onto hubby yet but then again, one must conquer the hill before attempting the mountain, right?

Like most kittens, she's rambunctious, curious, playful and bloody clumsy. We've realised that she's also got a bad sense of balance for a cat, has a strange habit of eating string, drools like crazy and sulks if she doesn't get what she wants (like the teenager she is). And according to husband, she's like most women he knows...everything she eats goes straight to the butt. Yeah, our cat has an ass to rival JLo.

During the nights, Sussie goes crazy. She likes the fact that the entire apartment is connected by doors and there are no dead ends. So she spends a large part of the night running like crazy from the kitchen up onto our bed, down under it, out to the livingroom, into the foyer and back into the kitchen. We have no idea what is chasing her or what she is chasing. And I think she's got no clue either. So we started calling The Little Crazy One. She does that all the way until our bedtime when husband closes the door connecting our bedroom to the kitchen so suddenly there is a dead end in the apartment. That is when she goes crazy in the livingroom. Our livingroom is a true blue jungle gym paradise for this little cat.

So many places to climb, so few hours in the night to do it!

And of cos she still has access to our bedroom through the other door that leads to the livingroom. So she enters once in a while when she feels lonely and jumps up onto the bed and occasionally tries to nibble on our toes (mostly the husband's toes. Maybe cos they're bigger and therefore more luscious. I dunno!). Many a time, I have been woken up by the husband suddenly grunting loudly and smacking the foot of the bed like crazy before falling heavily back into bed and into sleep. I am truly amazed by that man sometimes. He can withstand the cat biting his toes a few times in a night and still for some reason does not close the door. Why? I still wonder.

On the nights when we do close both doors, cutting off access into the bedroom, Sussie meows oh so sadly and paws the door. Those have been guilt ridden nights for me but for the sake of a full night's sleep, I close my eyes and try to drown out her cries cos I know she'll just come in and disturb us if we opened the door.

Sussie has a pretty bad sense of balance...for a cat. Many a time she has tried and failed to jump onto a table or ledge and stay on. There was once when I was sitting at the computer table and she came up to me and attempted to jump up onto the table. But she got as far as getting her chin and both paws onto the table while the rest of her dangled down and of cos she fell off and landed in a heap under the table. Such shame she must have felt but such courage for soon after, she moved on towards husband and tried to jump up onto the ledge next to him instead. But we knew that was an even bigger challenge than climbing up onto the computer table so husband told her, 'Seriously Sussie, if you couldn't even get up on that table, do you really think you can make it up that ledge?'

Such harsh words! And as if she understood, Sussie changed her mind and slumped off under the sofa to lick her wounds of shame and contemplate another climb on a different, more successful day.

Sussie likes to sit on the bed when I get ready to go out and watch. And when I am ready, she comes forward to be petted one last time. She's so cute. She loves to be petted although that took a while before she realised just how much she liked it. She's still a very very shy cat and runs and hides when we have company over. But at least with us, she's got no shame and wants to be petted A LOT!

For such a small cat, I often find myself wondering how on earth she manages to shit and pee so much in one day. She doesn't eat that much and certainly doesn't drink that much but the lumps of pee that I scoop out everyday are usually the size of my fist! And the smell of it...well, enough said that it gives off a full and heavy bouquet with a sizeable dose of sour and disgusting.

So yesterday, husband and I had made plans to go out when he came home from work. So as usual, Sussie sat on the bed as I got ready. But this time, she was not alone. She had with 2 of her favourite toys with her, a rat with a long string tied to it so we can play catch with her and a strawberry cushion that she likes to bite and kick. As I was getting ready, Sussie was displaying her bad habit of eating the string attached to the rat. So I pulled it out of her everytime she started biting on it. But then I went to the toilet and when I came back a minute later, there was Sussie on the bed, chowing down on the string like it was her last meal. By the timeI pulled Rat away from her, she had biten off and eaten about 1.5m of string!

THere was no way for me too get it out of her so all I could do was pet her and tell her, 'You know, you're gonna get sick. I can't help you anymore. You're gonna be sick tonight.'

But she seemed fine and the string was gone so shaking our heads in dismay, we left our little Sussie home alone.

We came home a few hours later and the smell that greeted us at the door was HORRENDOUS! There was Sussie looking at us with guilt ridden eyes as she met us at the front door and then running off in shame under the sofa, her safe haven. At first we thought that she had shat really REALLY bad and maybe she didn't make it to her litterbox. I checked the kitchen where the smell seemed to be really strong but there was no sign of an accident. We went out to the the livingroom and it smelled like she had shat everywhere, it was so bad. We searched everywhere for signs of a pool of pee or a stack of shit but NOTHING.

But suddenly, the husband looked under the bed and there it was...no urine, no shit...but A LONG PIECE OF STRING. It was brownish and wet and the smell under the bed would make anyone sick. Little Sussie had gotten sick like I predicted. She threw up the string WHOLE under our bed and it smelled like biological warfare.

And as usual, husband had to do that clean up. But after picking up the pile of SICK, he got so sick of the smell I had to finish off the clean up. I mopped up the entire bedroom and the rest of the apartment while the husband got out the fresh spray and attacked the apartment like he was out to kill flies. All while moaning to Sussie, 'Why Sussie why??! Why do you have to eat that string? Why?! You little crazy one..'


And that is the story of my silly little cat and her many adventures in the apartment.