Naebody in Particular

one more edgar/emily story, and then i’m done.

fast forward a couple of years from the last story, after the “previous administration” and i had moved up to savage, maryland (2000?) and into a little three bedroom house across from the historic Savage Mill.

we known since day one that Edgar had a rather robust set of vocal chords, and had a constant struggle trying to get him to shut the heck up. (Emily, for some reason another, was as quiet as her brother was annoying.)

shortly after we moved into the new place, the problem escalated to the point that he was waking us up at 2am every morning — just parked outside the bedroom door, caterwauling in what was obviously an attempt to raise the dead.

after about of month, we finally got fed up and talked to the vet out of sheer exasperation. she calmed us down, and recommended we get a spray bottle, fill it up with water, and put it by the door. each time Edgar caterwauled, we were to open up the door, give him a squirt or two in the face, and firmly say: “No.”

she said within a week or so, Edgar would learn.

that very night, i woke up at 2am to Edgar caterwauling — i grabbed the bottle, i opened the door, i gave him a squirt, and told him “no.” the next night, i did the same. and the next night. and the next. two weeks later, i was still getting up, still opening the door, and still hosing down the cat. (NOTE: my way of saying “no” may have become more crass as the days turned into weeks.)

by the third week, i had developed insomnia (wonder why?) and was up working on the computer in the front room when the 2am caterwauling began. caught completely off guard, i ran towards the bedroom just in time to see …

… Emily caterwauling …

… the bedroom door handle turning, Emily running off, the door opening, and finally Edgar getting hosed down with the spray bottle for the 21st consecutive night.

It had been Emily all the time.

Interesting to note that Emily was smart enough to run away when the door started to open, and Edgar was stupid enough to sit there and get hosed down each night. He probably though we were giving him a bath.

The next night we started sleeping with the bedroom door open, with Emily asleep (soundly, quietly) under the foot of the bed.

you’ll forgive me but after all of yesterday’s drama and moroseness, i have to blog out one of my two favorite Emily the Cat stories — and i promise they are happy/funny.

back in 1998, when i was living with the “previous administration” in bethesda, maryland. (it’s stunning to me that i’ve gone 1,480 posts and never mentioned that someone existed before the lady sparkler, but stick with me.)

we had been talking for some time about getting a cat or two, and over the next couple of weekends we hit just about every animal shelter adoption between here west virginia.

finally, at a petco out in fairfax, we were looking through the temporary kennels from the local shelter when we stumbled upon an enormous, beautiful, jet black cat — all you could see was two stunning yellow eyes peering out of the back of the cage.

i stopped and watched a bit, partly because the cat was so enormous, but mostly because the cage was dark enough that i was having a hard time making out what was shadow and what was cat.

finally, as my eyes adjusted, i started to notice that the rather large, black cat’s hindquarters were moving — and moving quite independently from his front half. i called “previous administration” over to show her, and by the time she made it over the back half of the cat was shaking violently up and down.

after a few seconds of increasingly bizarre movement from the black cat, a second set of yellow eyes appeared from underneath the black cat’s bottom.

turns out there was a another cat in that kennel, and the second cat was so freaked out by the attention that she was literally crawling under the black cat looking for a place to hide.

that was Emily. the black cat was her brother, Edgar. they both came home with us that night.