Monday, October 17, 2011

How can this be sibling rivalry when he's a cat and I'm not?

I have no luck with my parents' pets.  They don't like me.

The feeling is mutual.

When my mother was alive, she and my dad had a brindle cairn terrier whose fur was a weird shade of purply brown.  He was so tiny as a puppy that he fit into my brother Pat's shirt pocket.  Full grown, he was the size of your average cat.  His real name was Spartacus, but we called him Sparky and my folks adored him.  My mother fed him hot meals.  He slept in their bed.  They fought over who it was the dog loved best.

I hated the little shit.  Where was all that adoration when I lived at home?  They took more pictures of that dog than my baby brothers.  He traveled with them.  Dad took him in the car whenever there was banking to do or fast food runs to make.  Sparky rode shot-gun.  If you happened to be invited along, Sparky still rode shot-gun.

He was the favorite.  He knew it.  He rubbed our noses in it.  My folks had five kids they didn't particularly care about and one majorly spoiled dog.  Whenever Mom fed him, he'd look over his shoulder at me and sneer.  He was having beef tips.  I was having peanut butter and jelly.

I used to feed him gummy bears just to watch him try to open his jaws.  Until Dad caught me doing it.  After which I fed him marshmallows.  He would drool and foam at the mouth when he ate them.  I tried to convince my folks he had hydrophobia but they were on to me.  "Poor Sparky", they would coo, "did that bad person give you (fill in the blank) to eat again?"  He would look at me malevolently and nod. Snitch.

Twice he pooped in my shoes.  Once I was wearing them at the time.

But he's dead now, so I got that going for me.

Except my Dad now has a cat.  Snoopy.  Snoopy weighs 480 lbs.  He looks like Puss in Shrek Four, only Puss is orange and Snoopy is black and white.

Dad is killing him with kindness.  He lets Snoopy drink out of his milk glass.  He hand feeds Snoopy all sorts of people food, along with the cat food he gets too much of, and bribes affection out of him with high-calorie cat treats.  Snoopy looks like a tick about to pop.  He's so fat that no one can lift him.  Also, he hisses, bites, scratches and generally demonstrates his assholery if you even try to pet him.  I don't even have to do that to get hissed at.  I just need to exist in his presence.

I am currently visiting with my dad, where I usually sleep on a rollaway bed.  Dad  is in the hospital, so I decided to sleep in his bed for tonight.  Snoopy would have none of it.  He picked a spot on the bed and defended it against my interloping ways as if I were the antichrist. 

So I beat the crap out of him with a (very) soft pillow and claimed the bed.  Then I felt so guilty I couldn't sleep.  Snoopy is curled up with his favorite toy, looking pathetic.  I am on my way to the rollaway now.  

Mom (and Dad) always loved him best.