the throne

For about the last month, the cat has decided to make her throne on the, well er, throne. She has taken up the habit of sleeping on the toilet. I am one of those people who insist on not only having the seat returned to the down position, but the lid as well. Being a single mother and not having to contend with another adult authority in the house (of the male persuasion), I was able to effectively train my sons to put down both the seat and lid. Lately though, this has backfired on me, by having to remove the cat, as well as raise the lid, whenever I want to use the toilet.

There are times when this is not convenient. Such times are in the middle of the night, when I stumble in the dark to go to the bathroom, or coming in from the cold, when I am in a bit of a hurry. My inconvenience does not matter to the cat, she does not remove herself on her own. I tell her to get down, she just looks at me and plaintively meows. Of course, she continues her mewing complaint until I remove myself from her throne. This is not the first time I have been trained by a cat. We used to have a cat, who had me trained to turn on the water in the sink every time I was in the bathroom, so she could get a drink. No ordinary water bowl for her.

I will admit, that my dogs are far from obedient. They sometimes lack basic ettiquette skills, they jump on guests, they slobber, they climb in my lap at inopportune times, they chew up the mail. But, overall, they know who is in charge (me) and they NEVER sleep on the toilet. Despite not having claws, the cat has also managed to train the dogs to leave her alone, save an occasional sniff. So, the truth be told the cat is in charge. Perhaps I should change the name of the blog to "Life in the cat's house."