If you’re a cat person you’ll understand. If you’re not… sorry for this ridiculous list. Fair warning: this is pretty sad... in more ways than one.
54 things that happen to you when you become a cat mum:
You become one of those people you previously despised, who call their pet their ‘baby’ and refer to themselves as ‘mummy’: ‘Hello baby! Mummy’s home!’
You start referring to yourself in the third person: ‘Get out of the cupboard kitty, you’re in mum—… aunty’s… mistress’s way.’
You talk to your cat as if it’s a human being who can reason and understand everything you say: ‘Don’t eat that—it’s not good for you, you’ll get sick and I’ll have to pay £40 to take you to the vet.’
You start calculating everything in vet bills. Example: ‘That top costs nearly half a consultation…’
You talk to people (especially babies and small children) as if they are cats: ‘Hello there boo! Aren’t you so cute and fluffy…’ *makes sucky kissy sounds*
You buy collars with bells on and laugh whilst filming your kitten freak out over the jingling sound they make every time they move
You regret buying collars with bells on when the jingling wakes you at five in the morning. Every morning.
The constant jingling sound produces a Pavlov effect—whereby every time you hear a little jingling sound, you look round for a kitty.
Because you have to keep the kittens inside for a couple of months but can’t trust them with free reign of the house (you would have no curtains left in less than a week), you learn to shut the door very fast behind you every time you leave a room.
You start doing this at work.
And at other people’s houses.
Open doors start to make you nervous.
As do open windows, cupboards, bags—anything open enough for a kitty to squeeze its face and therefore its entire body into.
You begin boarding up selected parts of your home to kitty-proof them: down the side of the freezer, behind the washing machine, moving plants to higher shelves etc.
You soon realise, after all your efforts, there’s no such thing as ‘kitty-proof’.
You start walking the cat on a leash around the garden (‘they’re too little to go out alone yet, but they need to go outside because they’re driving me insane indoors).
You think the cat looks kinda cool on its leash.
You pretend that you’re an eccentric billionaire, walking a tiger around your ninety-acre estate on a diamond-studded leash.
You pretend you’re a model, walking a cat down the catwalk (pun intended).
You pretend the cat is a model, walking you down the catwalk.
You feel a little jealous the cat has got a better model walk than you.
You fear that eventually, you’ll become so accustomed to walking the cat that you’ll lose your sense of shame and escalate from walking the cat around the garden in secret, out of necessity, to walking the cat in public as a routine and as if this is a perfectly normal and socially acceptable thing to do in the English countryside.
You waste hours of time watching the kitties do… nothing much really.
You waste hours lavishing the cat with affection… only to have it scratch your face off when you need some lovin’ in return.
You start noticing patterns in your cat’s behaviour and start interpreting significant (or insignificant) meanings behind it: the cat only brings in dead (or if unlucky—live) animals into the house when you’re in, but never when you’re out, therefore the cat is bringing the dead/soon-to-be-dead animal in for you—it’s a present… or the cat thinks you are its kitten and is trying to teach you to hunt. Or the cat is dissatisfied with the tinned slop you feed it and is trying to communicate as much. Therefore, the cat thinks you are an incompetent provider. You are a bad cat mother.
You become paranoid by the sound of the cat flap and constantly have to get up to check that the cat hasn’t brought in a little present/practise kill/extra food with it.
You become complacent about the sound of the cat flap and even the sound of the cat patting a dead creature across the kitchen floor whilst you are in the bath: Oh well. As long as it’s dead, the cat will either eat it, take it back outside, or I’ll scoop it up with the dustpan later…
Your phone (and therefore Facebook/Instagram/Tumblr/wall paper on every electronic device) contains 90% cat photos and videos, or other cat related media.
You do impressions of your cat. First, just to close family and friends. Then to work colleagues. Then to acquaintances. Then to complete strangers—with no shame at all.
When people tell you about the cute things their kids do, you tell them about the cute things your cat does…. and they look at you like you’re the crazy one.
You look forward to the cat greeting you when you get home. The first thing you do when you get in the door is dump your stuff, pick up the cat and poggle its ears for fifteen minutes.
When the cat stops waiting for you when you come in, you dump your stuff, go outside and hunt for the cat so you can take it inside for cuddles and poggling—or, why wait until you’re indoors? The middle of the street is perfectly acceptable.
Finding cat hairs on you, in, or immediately after, a bath is no longer a surprise. Nor is finding cat hairs in your own hair, in the car or on things that have never had any direct contact with a feline.
The cat routinely sleeps in your work bag and you think he’s too cute to be moved—even though it was the last thing you own that was not contaminated with cat fur.
You wake in the middle of the night to find you’re living in THAT Jurassic Park kitchen scene—because there’s velociraptor purring/mewling/scratching sounds outside the bedroom door… and then the door handle pings…several times… and then the door creaks open… and you strain to listen for the soft padding of paws on the floor, but hear nothing… you lift yourself up on your elbow and contemplate turning the light on… then think, no, that’s silly, I’m just being paranoi— And then there’s a velociraptor-cat in your face and your screams wake your sister in the room next door.
When you come home from work, the cat has broken into your room and made himself at home in the middle of your bed.
You’re woken most nights by the cat successfully/unsuccessfully trying to get into your room.
You go to bed, every night, mildly paranoid.
You wake up in the middle of the night extremely paranoid, thinking you can hear the cat trying to get in.
You dream of velociraptors.
You start blockading yourself in your room with a chair before you go to bed and wonder if this is normal for other cat owners.
Eventually, you get used to being ambushed, climbed like a mountain and snuggled like a body-pillow—in bed, on the driveway, coming out of the bathroom, whilst you’re trying to watch television, weeding the garden, sunbathing...
You realise you’ll never be left alone ever again… and that’s not so bad.
And then, you get home one afternoon, and the kitty isn’t there. But your sister is, and she sits you down and breaks the news that an untimely incident with a car that morning took your cat away from you.
Your heart breaks and you wail like an actual wailing banshee for at least an hour.
You watch the other kitten—your sister’s cat-baby—frantically search the house and garden for his brother, over and over, for three days, and your heart breaks a bit more. How do you say ‘He’s gone, baby,’ in cat-language?
You write a poem about the lost love of your life.
And you cry for him before you go to sleep.
And in the pet aisle at the supermarket.
And when you see pictures of him—which, since your phone is full of cat photoshoots and videos, is ALL the time.
You show people who never knew the cat (like your sister’s new boyfriend) the photo album that is dedicated purely to his memory. Because somehow it might convey to them how awesome your cat was and why you’re so devastated. Even six months later.
You think you’ll never love anything or anyone again now the cat has gone— because who could replace someone so special, who totally ‘got’ you and loved you because you were a crazy cat lady, and not in spite of it?
You miss being a crazy cat lady.
Now you’re just plain crazy. And where’s the fun in that?
In case you’re worried about me… you should be; it’s been nearly a decade since I was a cat mum, and I am, honestly, still not completely over it. Please fund my career change to a cat-hotel owner/cat psychologist/cat-café worker. Or sign the petition to my landlord explaining why it’s my human right to have a feline take over my life.
I jest. Mostly.
Here’s some pictures of the little weirdo who inspired this post:
Tybs... my velociraptor.
I’d love to hear from you, so let me know, in the comment section:
What do you love about cats?
Your feline-related stories!
How do I persuade my landlord to let me have a cat?
