Poor kitties...

As Erin and I are moving across the country shortly, we had to answer the question of what we would do with our bratty little pets, Felix and Willow.

We decided, on the advice of several friends and family, to ship them by air. This would allow Erin and I the opportunity to enjoy a leisurely, all-expenses-paid nine-day drive across Canada - without the dubious pleasure of their company. Just imagine - two cats (and a litterbox) cooped up with you in a little Grand Am for a 4500 km drive...

They aren't the best-behaved cats in the world either. Erin says Willow, who was her cat before we met, is morally depraved because she was raised by a single mother. And as we bought Felix just before we were married, he was conceived out of wedlock. Not a great start.

Willow frustrates me because she has not grasped the most elementary of feline instincts: covering the stuff she leaves in the litterbox. Not that she doesn't try; but she ignores all the litter provided for that purpose, choosing instead to paw at the unyielding plastic sides of the box and the very solid floor outside of it. Now, I won't comment on her intelligence, other than to point out that this is an instinct, not a learned behaviour, and that she doesn't even have that figured out...

Felix, for his part, styles himself as a cheetah or jaguar on the hunt, and tears around our small apartment accordingly. Erin can't wrap herself in a blanket in his presence, because he'll attack anything that moves underneath it (elbows, toes, etc.) And when, at 0200 hours, he is bored, he beats on our bedroom door or a closet. Thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump until you chase him and lock him up. For five or six months now, we've squirted him, soaked him in the sink, doused him in the shower, yelled at him, smacked him, and locked him up - he just won't learn.

I've finally figured him out. He isn't a bad cat; this would imply a standard of behaviour. He's not immoral, in other words. He's amoral - that is, he has no sense of right and wrong whatsoever, and coupled with a total inability to make even the simple connection that Pavlov's dog accomplished ("Event A leads to event B") between his behaviour and the unpleasant consequences that follow, he drives me insane.

But, other than threatening to barbecue him or holding him under the tap in the bathtub, I have been unable to truly have my revenge upon these cats. Until today.

See, I finally made the arrangements to ship them. And because of flight times and connections, the trip will take no less than 11 hours - six hours of that a layover in Montreal! That's a bad enough arrangement for a human traveller. They'll be in cages in cargo compartments.

I really do love them, and I pray they make it safely. But I just can't help a little vindictive satisfaction when I ponder the LOOOOOOONG day they'll have 25 November.

Have a nice flight!