🔅tl;dr: story about how child-replacement cat is a total flippin neurotic weirdo—in human terms, serial killer material🔅
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Presently kicking butt in college (& working constantly, ignoring my pleas to have more fun), my youngest son @Presidentwiggs also happens to be my hardcore mr. deep-clean & organize, plot & plan, decorate & beautify, streamline & improve upon, get-on-board-or-get-out-of-his-way, nonstop go-go-GO! neat-freak energizer bunny-bear god of order project manager man. Noteworthy: he’s the cheeriest, healthiest, most balanced person I know. [I wish I could pay him to organize & manage my life—without the added risk of him becoming drunk on power… son > mom power 🤨😈]
So naturally— not only does my tiny substitute furry replacement son ABHOR filth and DESPISE disorder, reacting with horror and disdain to every “disaster” as though he was raised in a palace (*ahem* dog rescue)— he makes every effort to avoid knocking things over, daintily stepping over & around tricky items, like pill bottles on tiny tables, abandoning routes when he sees no way to neatly cross. He will JOLT in surprise if an item is somehow disturbed. Only then does my substitute replacement son ever behave awkwardly, fumbling in response to the rare miscalculation, like a quirky actor endearingly tripping over a table in a rom-com.
Obviously, a cat so methodical and obsessed with cleanliness would never think, nor deign, to use the litter box on a… not-litter-box. Ew. “If you’re angry, glare at the human without blinking for 30 minutes; follow up with a powerful, medium-strength bite on the meaty part of the arm, if necessary, like a civilized cat. Have some self-respect!” Beto would 100% yell at other cats, if he knew how some of them behaved. (I won’t tell. I don’t want to upset him.)
Now that you understand some of Beto’s pathological issues— without even getting into his diagnosed Pica & numerous unmentioned OCD symptoms— this👇 is his dramatic, ritualistic response to the trauma of “human splashed drops of coffee on floor.” He must cover spills or odd smells, every single time, in the same way. If he sees me carrying a drink, he will drop what he’s doing to follow me, just in case, so that he can notify me right away if there’s a situation— and he is JUST as horrified by purified water.
I know for a fact that he left my room to clean the bottom of his contaminated paws. We’ve been roommates for 5 years. I know too much. Plus, it’s not like he can access cleaning products and paper towels. The heck if he’s going to return until I fix the damn floor. Thank god he can’t speak. He’d be insufferable.
Yet somehow, being covered in alligator blood is no problem. Everyone needs an outlet for their rage. If it means Beto is not plotting my death (yet), the more gators he kills, the better.
He drinks out of the toilet btw.
#betothealligatorhunter #CatsOfMastodon