I have this terrible cat. Well, four terrible cats, but this one is the worst. Her name is Izzy and she once made me wear a dead bird on my foot.
Every time I eat cereal, she hovers. She sits behind my head on the back of the couch, just waiting, watching, lurking around. She can hold it together pretty well through most of the bowl, but when I get to the last couple of bites and she hears the spoon clink against the bowl, she goes on high alert- eyes big, ears twitching, nose right next to my ear.
She loses it when I lift the bowl up to my mouth to drink the milk. Juuuust as the bowl touches my lip, I hear “mreoow!”
Lower the bowl, all is quiet.
Lift it again...”mreoow!”
This pattern can continue indefinitely- usually. Normally we go through this a few times before I get bored and just drink the milk and put the bowl in the sink.
Today! She’d had enough.
I lifted the bowl to begin the funny mreoow game, and Izzy put her front paws on my shoulder. I lowered the bowl, and she put her back paws on my shoulder too. I took a second to inform her that she’s not a parrot...which was exactly how long it took her to get her front paws INSIDE the bowl and slosh it everywhere. I set the bowl down to get a towel and returned to find she had already finished off the milk and was contentedly licking her paws while giving me a look that clearly said, “I win, human.”
...I’m beginning to think that this story explains exactly why she made me wear the bird shoe.