Make Me Love You:
Public, Part One
Public, Part Two
Private

Apparently, I have a Diaryland twin. It's just that unfortunately, I can't seem to find her now.

Driving down the street yesterday, L said "There's this banner that runs on Diaryland..."

And I finished her sentence, "She's looks just like me, doesn't she???"

Yes. It's true. They say everyone has a twin somewhere, and I believe I have found mine. Problem is, I haven't seen the banner again and I can't remember her ID. But trust me, if you ever see the banner that says "this is why I fail," the picture on the left, the close-up of the face, that looks just like me.

It's freaky-weird-ass stuff, I'm telling you. It creeps me out.

Also, I think my cat has developed an unhealthy addiction to wire nuts.

When you are heartily enmeshed in a relationship with an electrician, you end up with some interesting things laying around. Ergo, I have some interesting things laying around. Such as wire nuts, which Jason pours into his pockets by the handful and seems to forget about until later. I could fill boxes with them, I'm telling you.

(In case you don't know, which I'm sure you do because you're smart and everything, but just in case you don't, wire nuts are just plastic things that electricians put on the ends of two or more wires to connect them together.)

And my cat has developed, over the last two years, this really spooky addiction to them. She plays fetch, and when I say that, I mean she plays it like those dogs that absolutely will not give up the game, even when the tennis ball is so thoroughly soaking wet that you can't seem to hold onto it once you've picked it up, it just squips out of your fingers.

But she doesn't drool. That's the one difference. The wire nut stays dry. You just want to kill yourself to get away from the game. Which, I'm not sure if that's much better.

A lot of people claim their cats play fetch, but I just laugh at said claims. Fetch is not when the cat gets the toy and sort of leaves it in your general vicinity. No, and don't even claim that it is, because it makes a mockery of what we real fetch-sufferers have to endure.

My cat gets the wire nut and brings it back to me (over and over and effing over again), and does one of three things:

Puts it directly in front of me and meows, and meows, and meows, and walks back and forth and back and forth, and pokes me with her paws, and meows, and meows, and meows, until I will pick it up and hurl it away from me, just to make the ungodly racket cease;

OR

Puts it into one my (rather expensive) boots, then proceeds to jam her paw way down in there and scratch unmercilessly at the inside, or just for kicks, sometimes scratch at the outside as well, until, just to save my footwear, I will toss the wire nut somewhere far away and then quickly run and hide aforementioned footwear before she gets back with it;

OR

Picks up the wire nut and drops it repeatedly on some part of my body - whatever is easily accessible - until I yell at her in an embarrassing way (example: "you little piece of...I am going to beat the shit out of you...will you just, oh I hate you you...ungh!") and throw the wire nut with all my strength.

The best thing to do, really, is to take the wire nut and put it up where she can't get to it. But you don't understand, that's just not violent enough. I feel the need to throw the wire nut with every ounce of strength in my body, because I am just so damned annoyed, and of course that just perpetuates the vicious cycle.

Once, I thought I'd try playing with her until she got so tired of it, she'd never, ever want to play again. Several hours later, I was nearly comatose and the muscles of both arms had basically disengaged. I had taken to picking the wire nut up between two fingers and sort of flinging it a few inches away. Lux would obediently walk over to it, pick it up in her mouth, and drop it by my hand again, stick her face right into mine, and meow. Loudly. With cat food breath.

I had reached the brink of insanity, brothers and sisters, and I'm here to tell you, it was not pretty.

My new thing is, I'm trying to overstimulate her. I am liberally sprinkling wire nuts anywhere and everywhere around the house. My thought is that she'll get so used to seeing them she won't be interested in them any more.

Well. So far, all it's accomplished is that you can't walk more than a few inches in my house without a small beige-and-black blob crouching in front of you, looking at you and then the wire nut expectantly.

Meow.

I'll keep you posted.

-Mlle R