Mr. Bill, Creature of the Night

It's hot, summer is here, and I think I need to go buy some fans. I also need to get a job, pronto, because both my kids are lying around sleeping all day and eating all night and this costs Mommy big money. Not to mention that the dog has refused to return to dog food after his several days of chicken and rice (he had an upset tummy and that's the dog cure all) and also, paying a professional assassin to take out my cat is not going to be cheap.

The cat has to be offed. He's always been squirrely, batshitinsane, a loon and/or a host of other crazy animal metaphors, but the past few nights have clinched it: he's wacko and should be whacked. See, Mr. Bill, my cat, deeply and intensely distrusts all human beings with the occasional possible exception of me. He thinks I'm his mother: when he is feeling sentimental and/or hungry (hard to tell the difference with Mr. Bill) he climbs up on my bed purring to try to suck on my fingers or elbows or whatever part of me is peeking above the covers. Since my fingers aren't particularly productive, this sucking soon turns into sharp little bites of irritation, which leads me to emit sharp little yelps of irritation. All this was okay, though, par for the course and all that, until M moved home, A became unemployed and A's boyfriend became a more or less permanent fixture (that development has led me to emit some more sharp little yelps of irritation too, honey, you bet it has.)

Mr. Bill is convinced that all these other people are out to kill him and, more importantly, they are between him and his canned cat food, to which he is devoted with an unholy passion. It was tough for him the first few days - he'd come into the kitchen, go to eat, spot a human being, freak out, run out the door, lather, rinse, repeat, with an ever increasing amount of madness brimming in his evil cat eyes. He couldn't stand it any longer, and now he's come up with a compromise: he's become nocturnal and wants to eat, play and hang out with me between 1:30 and 6:30 a.m. He comes to my bedroom window and howls until I get up, walk to the bathroom, peer out with my bleary myopic eyes to see if he has anything live and struggling in his mouth and open that window to coax him in. Like a vampire, Mr. Bill must be invited in with dulcet tones lest he take fright and wing off and start the entire howling process over again just as I'm getting back to sleep. Then, because I am reluctant to go to the kitchen and open a can of catfood and show it to him and perhaps provide some pleasing meal time entertainment, soothing conversation and so on, I mutter something obscene and stumble back to bed. This makes Mr. Bill upset and thus he proceeds to howl up and down the hallway for an hour or so.

This morning was particularly bad, because, as I noted in the first paragraph of this epic, it is summer and it is hot and therefore I am sleeping with only a sheet over my naked body. Mr. Bill decided that I should a) wake up or b) produce cat milk from my ankles or c) feed him or d) god only knows, but something, somehow, somewhere, was not right in his universe this morning at 1:30, 3:00, 5:00 and 6:30 a.m. and he was determined to let me know about it. To which end he positioned himself by my feet and every time my legs twitched he pounced on them. A single sheet is no defense against Mr. Bill's claws and teeth so finally, driven beyond endurance, I smacked him. Guess what? It made him howl more. There is no way to win. I tried to shove him out the bathroom window but that didn't work either. I can't stand it. I'm calling in the mafia.

please note I am not actually going to kill or even injure my cat and when I say I smacked him it was an openhanded smack of exasperated love such as you might administer in a playful way to your close friends butt if you were a 14 year old boy. thank you. there is no need to call PETA on my poser vegan ass.