Erin v. the Big Cat, part XXVII

As most of you probably know, my roommie has two cats. I enjoy the cats. They’re cute. They’re entertaining.

But in the morning? They drive me crazy.

Since I’m usually the first one up in the morning, I give them their morning food. The second I open my bedroom door, they’re right there, looking hungrily at me. Pathetically mewing. Running to the kitchen and gazing longingly at the food.

Sometimes I feed them immediately. Sometimes I make them wait until I’m dressed. On the days I make them wait, it’s an endless game. Every time a door opens, they run. Sometimes they follow me into the bathroom.

Now Simba…Simba is a BIG cat. I’m not sure exactly how big, but I’m going to say over 20 pounds. Sasha is a normal sized housecat, but looks positively kitten-like in comparison. When I feed them, I have to shove Simba out of the way. He doesn’t seem to understand that I can’t pour the food in the dish if he’s blocking it.

Fairly recently, we noticed something. The cats have two separate dishes. Both dishes are filled. Typically, the cats will eat some, leave, then come back and eat some more. But the greedy big cat, we’ve found, will return and eat ALL the food before the little one comes back. So we’ve taken to hiding the second dish and feeding it to Sasha in secret.

This does not please Simba. Not at all.

Yesterday, before I left for my tutoring job, they were both begging for food. I knew it wasn’t time for them to eat, but I also knew that there was food left in Sasha’s dish. I figured the poor kid was probably hungry, so I brought the dish onto the sun porch and closed the door so he could finish.

Simba was absolutely pathetic. He meowed. He scratched at the door. He paced back and forth in the kitchen.

Now, this morning, I was confused by the fact that they weren’t begging for food when I got up. Hm. I figured maybe they were sleeping. Jen was asleep on the futon.

After I got dressed, Simba came up to me in the hall and gave me his “I want food” meow. I still wasn’t completely positive that Jen hadn’t given them food, so I gave them small portions…but both cats came running.

I walked into the living room, and Jen said “I fed them at 5.”

So I went back into the kitchen and put both food dishes up, and said “Simba, you are a bad, bad kitty.”

I will not be outwitted by a cat. 😉