Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Princess Pants

I will no longer be responding to the name "Minerva Louise." No, if you want to get my attention, you will have to call me "Princess Pants" from now on.

My angelic ray of moonlit glow (some people call him Rohan) declared me his "Princess Pants" tonight when he was feeding me. Wasn't that just too beguiling of him?

Anne Elisabeth, being wretched, tries to tell me that he said it in an exasperated tone. "You were being a stubborn princess, and he was frustrated, Minerva. That's all that was."

She reeks with jealousy. Rohan never calls her Princess Pants.

Besides, I'm not stubborn. I'm firm. I am in the process of training my humans into a new eating routine, and humans, as everyone knows, are one of the hardest animals in the world to train to do anything.

But my humans (Well, I say "my humans," but I really mean "Anne Elisabeth." My snoogle-bug of winsomeness is so sweet-tempered he just does what she tells him to. Someday, I will get her back for how she brow-beats that man!) have been insisting for the last two and a half months on feeding somewhere I Do Not Wish To Eat. They have been feeding me with the foster cats.

Anne Elisabeth (being wretched) insists that this is due to the Kitty Politics currently rampant at Rooglewood. Some kitties, she claims, are more dominant and greedy than other kitties, and she has to separate them out into different feeding stations so that she knows everyone is getting his or her fair share. Thus my Minion eats on the piano, Magrat underneath it, Marmaduke on top of the entertainment center, and yours truly gets shut in the guestroom with the three foster kittens!

Can you see a problem here?

Let me break it down for you. Where "Kitty Politics" are concerned, there is only one hierarchy here at Rooglewood. I rule:

(Cue Powerful Angel Music: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH)

And they . . . do their thing.

(Cue blurping trombone music: Whaap, whaap, whaaaaap . . .)

So you see how this sort of segregation couldn't be stood for. If there was going to be any separating of the eating stations, I was bound and determined that mine should be the eating station of choice. NOT the one shared with the lowly fosters.

Thus I began an intense training routine. It takes a kitty of rare grit and a willingness to get tough with the humans in question, particularly if you have one as bullheaded as Anne Elisabeth.

I began Project: Train By Starvation.

It's a simple enough procedure, but don't let its simplicity fool you. You have to be in it for the long haul if you expect it to work. You have to be willing, after maybe two bites of both breakfast and dinner, to completely turn up your nose to your food bowl and go sit in a fluffy huff off in a corner somewhere, watching through half-closed lids as those scavenging foster kittens finish off your meals. Every day. For weeks.

Anne Elisabeth, being dense, insisted that when I got hungry enough I would cave and start eating my share.

My angel face of love, however, said, "O! Most wretched Anne Elisabeth! How can you say such a thing? Clearly, my beloved and adored sweetness pie kitty pumpkin is far too delicate a creature to eat a full meal all in one fell swoop! She wishes to take her time, to savor her meal, to enjoy it over hours of sweet culinary pleasure."

Anne Elisabeth: "She eats the same blasted thing every single day. What is there to enjoy?"

But, when my already trim little hips grew ever-trimmer, my beloved insisted that Anne Elisabeth rearrange the eating stations yet again.

And I got The Spot Of Choice! I get to eat in the the Author Study now! Right up on Anne Elisabeth's desk, next to her computer! Every morning, Anne Elisabeth feeds all the other kitties, saving me for last of all (because I'm special like that). Then she carries me into the Author Study (because you can't expect this great beauty to walk there on her own, can you?), places me before my bowl and feeds me. She then prepares her morning hot drink and shut us in the Study, just the two of us! And we spend all morning, just being Us Girls together, and I take my sweet time over my food, and the other animals paw at the door, and they aren't allowed in because they aren't the Special Kitty like I am!

And they weren't willing to go the distance of starvation to get The Spot Of Choice. So lick my whiskers, losers!

Of course, you have to continue a routine of firmness in order to maintain your position in a dictatorship such as mine. This week, for instance, Anne Elisabeth has been particularly slovenly about her duties. She keeps claiming she "doesn't feel well," that she "has the flu" or some such nonsense, and somehow thinks this is an excuse to sleep in and not feed the kitties on the regular schedule.

I've put a stop to that! Yesterday, when she "wasn't feeling well," and tried to sleep in, I knocked her crystal cookie jar off the counter and shattered it. That brought her running quick enough! And when she'd finished sweeping up the shards, who do you think got fed in The Spot Of Choice as per usual?

That's right.

Princess Pants rules this household.