He's My Baby

When this cat snuggled up against us while we were stargazing at my husband's family's house, I knew we had to have him. All the other cats were somewhat wild and wouldn't even dare to come near us, but this little black thing had no fear.

It took only two days to convince my then-fiance and my family to take him in. He was neutered, declawed, named after the personification of time, and shown a lot of love. Since I still lived at home, he joined my family's two cats and two dogs, but my mom didn't mind at all. He soon came to be very loved in my house, and my mom constantly teased me that he'd never want to leave.

However, Cronos was already developing a troublesome habit with his insane love of food. He had not been fed much at the farm he was born on, so it was quite natural that he would be excited over eating regularly. I just assumed that it would eventually calm down.

I was quite wrong.

This apparent never-ending hunger first really manifested itself when we saw that Cronos was becoming chunky and the other cats seemed to be loosing weight. I began to watch him when it was feeding time and learned that he scarfed his food down so fast that the other cats were only about half-way done when he was finished. He would then move onto their food, and they would just give up. I stopped him from doing this when I was home, but my family wasn't much help on the matter when I was off at college. I knew that once he moved in with me I would be able to regulate his diet better.

When the big move came, Cronos was none too impressed. He would hide in the bath tub while I unpacked, not improving any of my homesickness, but he eventually came into his own here. We learned how to play fetch and hide and seek together, and he would entertain me with his antics. However, this paradise had its own snake.

It started with Cronos sitting on the pillow next to me, watching me intently as I slept and getting excited when I woke because he assumed I would feed him, as I often did when I got out of bed in the morning. However, he seemed to assume that if he woke me up earlier, he could be fed earlier. This soon manifested as knocking my phone off the lamp stand, knocking the TV antenna over, walking over me, meowing, etc. I locked him out of the bedroom, but then he found the joy of chewing on the door stopper, which makes a nice, loud 'sproing' noise when gnawed. This can be heard from anywhere in the tiny apartment and is quite the effective alarm clock, but does not make for a very happy momma at three in the morning.

I tried many different methods to stop him from chewing on the door stops. Sticky tape was the first option, but he discovered that he enjoyed eating tape, so I switched over to red hot sauce. This worked really well for about a week, but would wear off and make the door stoppers gunky. It soon lost its effectiveness in another way as Cronos discovered he enjoyed spicy things as well. I would soon resort to throwing shoes at the door in the hope it would scare him away, but if he is nothing else, he is persistent. Finally, we learned we could just unscrew the door stops from the door. Cronos wasn't happy about this.

However, this didn't end his early morning mischief. I ended up giving him a midnight snack before going to bed, which helped calm him down but did not abate his hunger at four in the morning. If I lock him out, he will just scratch at the door, but I have half-solved this problem with ear plugs. Of course, he enjoys trying to eat them if I give him a chance to sleep by me.

I have now basically given up getting a full night's sleep and have lost this war to my cat. But, even through all these hardships and annoyances, he's still my baby and I love him. If he was a perfect cat, then I couldn't get the satisfaction of calling him names and joking about it with my husband. It just goes to show that having everything isn't really having anything at all.