How I became a cat sitter Part 3 – OMG my cat is evil!
In the last post, I told you we finally took Larmlarm home and were initially very excited about having our own cat. I would like to tell you everything worked out fine and we lived happily ever after. But no. It turns out LARMLARM IS EVIL!
Don’t get me wrong, LarmLarm is the love of my life, but he is also the most terrible person you will ever meet in your entire life!!!
Oh no no, I am not speaking as 23-year-old me, I am speaking as the ‘now-me’ after seeing hundreds of cats, he is still the most difficult cat I have encountered!
You are probably putting your hands on your hips going, ‘I am not so sure! My Muffin is pretty bad, you haven’t met my Muffin yet, you don’t know….’
Oh well, maybe I don’t know how difficult your cat is, but my Larmlarm bit some of my wedding guests and drew blood!!!
(I bet you went silent just now, good!)
Now, I will tell you another fact. Larmlarm is ‘blacklisted’ from his vet in Hong Kong, Paris, and ALSO in his current vets in Dublin. Oh yes, I said VETS because he needs to have two vets. Because one vet does house calls when he only needs to be looked at, and one vet does the heavy-duty stuff, like surgery or something. The reason being, he is so aggressive with vets that he usually trashes the whole consultation room! So we try to avoid bringing him to the clinic except if it’s really really necessary. One of his vets considered him to be ‘crazy’ (his word) and the other considered him to be ‘a bit odd’ (her words).
Since that first night we took him home, we realised he might be a difficult cat. But we didn’t know much about cats back then, so we thought all cats are difficult and he is only normal.
We were told we should put him in a cage, since he was a kitten and he would be used to being in a cage in the shelter. So we purchased a similar cage for him, as you can see in the pictures in this post and the last post. We settled him down in the cage with a litter tray, bowls and towels and went to bed.
These photos record the very first moment when we arrived home from the shelter and opened the cat carrier to introduce Larmlarm to his new home. Apologies for the poor quality of the photo but we had a first gen digital camera, what do you expect?
Soon after we went to bed and tried to sleep, he started screaming. This annoying screaming behaviour, unfortunately, never went away up to this day. He loves people, he loves to be with people at all times. Sometimes, his behaviour can be quite dog-like, so he DOES NOT WANT TO SLEEP ALONE! He just can’t sleep alone, the end. Ever since the first night, every night he sleeps with me. I have no choice or he will scream the whole place down! Oh, I know you are putting your hands on your hips again going, ‘Excuse me? I thought you are a cat behaviourist, you should have known better than to let him get away with that the very first time!’
Trust me, we did try. But he screamed until 4am! He was so loud I was worried the neighbours were going to call the cops! I had to give in. And remember the Adoption Assistant said (refer to my last post here) how he has a tiny voice? Ah-ha, no he doesn’t have a tiny voice, he has the loudest cat voice in the world (oh yes, that’s after hundreds of cats I have seen from my work.) Soon, we realized Larmlarm was pretending to be innocent and gentle at the shelter and his true evil self came to life just barely 30 minutes after we took him home!!! Oh my goodness, he conned us!!!
Since then, I have learned another thing about him. Larmlarm is a very very determined person. Once he sets his mind on something, he will make damn sure to achieve it – opening doors, waking people up, dropping my iPhone, pulling all the laundry down from the drying rack, etc. I am sure he can climb Mount Everest if he wants to (though I know he won’t want to, he is too lazy and too cowardly of a person!) He does go through phases though. When he was going through the I-must-open-the-wardrobe-at-2am-and-pull-everything-out’ phase, it was terrible. Or that other time, when he went through the I-have-to-scream-at-the–front-door-until-the-neighbours-call-the-cops phase, it was not only annoying but could have possibly got us arrested for Disturbance Of Peace!
However, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Having Larmlarm helped with my depression a great deal. He helped me in so many ways I find it difficult to put them into words. His determined personality taught me to never give up! Once you set your mind on something, such as waking the human up at 4am, you just have to do it. Since I have no intention of waking people up at 4am, I set my mind to getting better. Have I told you, regardless of his difficult personality, Larmlarm is an excellent nurse? If he knows you are not well (and he always knows!) he will sit next to you or on your chest and just stare at you, almost as if asking ‘Are you ok?’ Sometimes he would proceed to give me headrubs, hoping to help me feel better. And guess what? I did feel better afterwards!
Soon after I got Larmlarm, I started to have enough energy to straighten out my life. I realised it is utterly stupid to stay in a job I hated just because of the expectations from people around me. Plus, I have always wanted to travel, so I decided not only to quit my job but to quit my country as well! Oh yes, I decided to move to France.
I already spoke some French at that stage. So France was a natural choice for me.
You might start to be freaked out and ask ‘but what about Larmlarm?’ Obviously, without a second’s hesitation, Larmlarm had to come with me. Larmlarm is part of my life. Not only is he my nurse, he is also my saviour. In fact, he is many many things to me! He is my mentor to put me back in my place when I am arrogant; he is my constant reminder life is beautiful when I lose hope; he was my alarm clock pulling me out of bed when I was so depressed and wanted to stay in bed forever. Most importantly, he teaches me to love and to be loved unconditionally. I am sure that without him, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
Before I go, I would like to share some more of Larmlarm’s baby pictures with you, enjoy!
N.B. If you want to know the story of our journey from Hong Kong to Paris, please click here, where I share the practical information and also our experience.