Talk to the Tail: Adventures in Cat Ownership and Beyond (10 page)

‘What are you talking about? This box is way too heavy and big to contain a mouse!’

‘Well, if you get off the top of it, I’ll open it up with this knife and show you.’

‘Mweeew!’ said Bootsy.

‘Raaalph!’ said Ralph.

I still didn’t think any of my cats were obese, but since I’d returned from my meeting with Alex, I was starting to view their physical mass in a more critical light. Was that the beginnings of a tummy Bootsy was developing, and, if so, how long would her tiny frame be able to put up with it? When Ralph had been to the vet last week, was the vet just being polite by calling him ‘chunky’? And was Janet’s slight struggle through the cat flap just the normal movement of a larger-than-average male cat, or the beginning of a slippery slope which would end with me having to attach him to a skateboard in order for him to be successfully transported to his food dish?

By purchasing the Panic Mouse, I hoped, I had stopped the decline just in time, and sure enough, within a minute of me opening the package, my cats were making ample use of its contents. Bootsy and Pablo spent much of the next hour being vastly entertained by three of the polystyrene beads in which the Panic Mouse had been packed, with The Bear shyly taking over during the mandatory breaks Pablo takes from any leisure activity in order to practise his neutered dry hump on Bootsy. It was also clear that the invoice that panicmouse.com had sent with the toy was to the liking of Shipley’s palate.

As for the Panic Mouse itself, the results were not quite what I’d anticipated. I’d decided to begin by testing it out on Janet, who, having the IQ of cottage cheese, is usually happy to chase almost anything, not excluding his own foot fur. But as I started the Panic Mouse’s antennae flicking, he gave it only the most cursory of bats, before getting down to the far more vital business of removing some deeply embedded lake scum from his tail.

Over the following weeks, Dee and I did our best to get the other cats interested in the Panic Mouse, setting the antennae at a variety of different speeds and angles, but their response was similar to Janet’s. Had each of them leaned against it with a cigarette in their mouth, lifted up a foot and struck a match against one of their paw pads, they could not have shown more aloof disregard. When placed in front of it, Ralph mostly just yawned, Shipley swore indignantly at me and wandered off, Bootsy delicately and nonchalantly licked a paw, while The Bear gave me a series of the eloquent, wide-eyed ‘You are joking, right?’ stares that only he can quite perfect. Pablo, meanwhile, seemed downright terrified, bolting outside every time I switched the Panic Mouse on, with a look in his eyes that suggested he had seen a plastic foot soldier of the apocalypse.

I could see their point: I’m not quite sure why my cats were supposed to think that the Panic Mouse was inherently mouse-like just because somebody had painted some whiskers, eyes and big ears on its smooth yellow base. If you applied the same logic, the giant wooden fish hanging in my entrance hall, carved by my Uncle Paul, would have been driving them wild with hunger for years.

The part of the Panic Mouse the cats were intended to chase was actually more birdlike than mouse-like. Perhaps a mouse-bird hybrid was an unnatural contravention of some ancient leisure code, like manufacturing a sporting missile that was halfway between a rugby and soccer ball?

Even so, I suspected that my cats were making a special, concerted group effort to ignore it. The Panic Mouse might have been no better than lower budget, less elaborate toys, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was any worse. I’m sure it wasn’t just my imagination that Pablo, Shipley, Bootsy, Ralph, Janet and even The Bear seemed to be hammering home their disinterest in the Panic Mouse by playing more than usual with other, entirely random loose impediments hanging around the house. I would not have been surprised if, in a further spirit of belligerence, they had left me their own amazon.com-style customer reviews of their other discoveries, complete with star ratings. These would probably include:

1. The Dried Noodle

‘It’s always one of life’s letdowns when your human turns on the hob and it turns out there’s nothing fish- or meat-based in the offing, but sometimes when there’s boiled water involved, it’s worth sticking around. After all, you never know: something brittle and magical might end up on the floor. Noodles might not taste as good as a turkey’s wattle or a mouse’s face, but there’s really nothing finer to bat round a parquet floor on a bored Sunday afternoon – particularly when we’re talking about the dried, uncooked version.
Watch
, as, under the control of your deft paws, the noodle skitters across the floorboards, under chairs, stools and cabinets!
Recline
, and stare for literally hours at the curve of the dried unleavened dough!
Fantasise
, as the noodle becomes a shrew, pike, triceratops or any mythical beast you care to imagine! Forget catnip mice – these cheeky little fellas do it for me every time.’ –
Janet

2. The Random Chunk of Cardboard

‘Most cats say boxes are best for sleeping, but that’s just propaganda. And while newspapers are good for casual chewing, nothing feels finer between the teeth than a well-made bit of household packaging. Recent personal favourites include the protective shells for ‘Vax Integra Carpet Washer 7652’ and the latest wireless audio fm transmitter from iStuff, but nothing quite beats the timeless chewability of ‘Big Yellow: This Way Up’. Tear it off in strips or chunks! Casually masticate a corner while your step-brother is curled up peacefully inside! The choices are endless . . .’ –
Shipley