She has her own routine, I suppose. At 4am, when I like to go to bed, she likes to shred things. It doesn’t seem to matter what. What I’ve noticed is that 4am also corresponds to when she nibbles the last of her cat food out of her bowl.

Maybel, whose full name is Maybel Fancyclaws Fluffybutt Purrfactory Bratyt Brave Hunter of the Beasts of the Sky-- or something like it-- is named after Mabel Pines from Gravity Falls, although her name isn’t spelled the same.

She is a bicolored cat with hints of tortoiseshell in the black parts of her fur. She came from outside, somewhere. She was probably around six months old when she followed my girlfriend home. She might be from an abandoned litter or a stray’s litter. There are several Maybel clones around the neighborhood with the same color pattern and the same fur texture. They’re extra friendly just like Maybel.

Friendly to humans, Maybel is aggressive toward dogs and other cats. She’s also aggressive toward things like small animals and her mouse toy.

She’s not dumb either. She lacks the strength and the dexterity, but I’ve caught her trying to open the cabinets several times. An indoor cat, she often brings us her leash when she wants to go on a walk.

You can’t really walk a cat. You can follow her around while she tries to eat the grass and attempts to murder God’s creatures, and that’s about it. She won’t follow you, so heeling is out of the question. She doesn’t care if you make “hurry up” sounds at her. Clicks and whistles and actual parts of speech do not sway her. But she does respond to her name if you call her-- but only indoors.

She gets dry food everyday, wet food on weekends. Weekends are what my partner and I call any day where we’re both off from work.

The wet food comes in little plastic packets, almost like mini-yogurt containers. There are twelve packets of wet food per purchase-- each a different flavor (salmon and shrimp are her favorites). When it is time for the wet food, she’ll get excited and cavorts, or to borrow a T.S. Elliot quote, she performs a “gavotte and a jig.”

Maybel knows where the food is and I have no doubt she’d eat it all if she could get to it. Opening the box isn’t a problem. Her claws could shred the thin plastic seal. The problem is the refrigerator door. It outweighs her by a factor of at least ten (or more, it’s hard to judge frigde door weights) and she can’t reach the handle. Or rather, she can’t reach the handle in a way that would allow her to use leverage.

She used to beg for food in a particular cat-like manner. The dogs, Bud and Tori have their own way of asking for food. Tori whines, Bud tries cute things like spontaneously rolling over. When Maybel wants food, she goes over to the Harry Potter poster and starts clawing at it. The poster is framed to protect it from her and she only scratches it to show she’s hungry. If that’s in the middle of the night, so be it.

This Get to Know Your Cat Node was reQuested by somebody wanting to know what would happen if my cat figures out how to open tinned cat food. But she doesn’t get tins of food and she already knows how to get to the food. It’s just that she can’t do it.

But… what if she could? Would Maybel Fancyclaws blow up like a balloon? Would she soon outweigh the refrigerator door? If so, a housecat of that size would be a dangerous proposition. They like us, but given her love of small animal murder, I think I’ll keep her on her diet and tightly control her food.


A reQuested node.

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