Fat cat leaves its mark; may be on borrowed time

Last night, I pulled the bandage off the back of my hand, and it really hurt.

The bandage was there because a couple of days before, the cat dug his left front paw into my skin, and hissed at me. His swipe with his paw resulted in three puncture wounds that pumped out three BB-sized drops of blood. Strangely enough, it didn’t hurt. The hiss made me hiss back, though. I am not one of those people who likes being hissed at.

You might be wondering why the cat attacked me, and my answer is, I don’t know. The only thing I was doing was feeding him.

He is an extremely greedy eater, and probably I wasn’t getting the food to him fast enough. He lunges at the bowl even before I start pouring kibble into it, and if my hand is in the way, he will take a swipe at it. He doesn’t tolerate anything getting between him and his kibble.

And that isn’t because the cat is starving. On the contrary, since he has been coming to our house for supper, he has put on a fair amount of fat.

In fact, you could mistake him for a Wall Street fat cat. He is dressed in a tuxedo. All he needs to complete the fat-cat look is a little top hat.

I have friends, a husband and wife, who have two tuxedo cats, and these friends function as staff for those two felines, who are much more polite than the cat who visits us. They have let those cats pretty well take over their house. One of the cats even opens cupboard doors to see what’s for dinner.

When these cats want something, all they have to do is order it up, and it appears as though by magic. This husband and wife are the Amazon.com of cat parents.

Their behavior is unlike mine. This particular cat, the one that scratched me, is operating on borrowed time.

Possibly realizing that, he has taken to greeting me when I go home at night, and rolling around on the patio at my feet, in hopes of brown-nosing me.

But I am wise to him. I stay away from him except to feed him and fill his water dish. He probably feels the same way about me. He doesn’t want lovin’. Only the kibble.

And if you were to ask him, he would agree with you.

Before scratching you and hissing at you, that is.