Little slice of bri
Travel, Writing, and Everything in-between
My Cat Likes To Sit In The Shower
Cats are fickle creatures. One minute they love you, and the next they’re climbing up the walls because thought they saw something, but in reality it’s just light from a car passing by. Personally, I think cats are the greatest animal/creature/organism ever created. I’ve had a cat in my life for 17 years, and I think that makes me an expert on them.
My current cat, Artemis, is a 3 year old flame-point Siamese mix. I like to think he’s part tabby, because of his orange stripes. He also looks a bit like a liger. When he was younger, his eyes, bright blue eyes the color of the Lubbock sky, crossed a lot and his poop stank like it’d been set out in the middle of summer to bake in 100 degree heat. Even though he’s kind of horrible at times, I love him.
Artemis, like most cats, does a lot of strange things. For instance, he refuses to sleep anywhere but smooshed up against my right shoulder. I have no idea why he does this, but he has now trained me to leave a cat-sized portion of space available on my right. He also likes to sit on my floor and stare at me while I’m on my computer. He’s doing this now, as I type:
But the strangest thing Artemis does is sit in the shower. I’m actually starting to worry about how often he does this. I wake up in the middle of the night to pee, and when I stumble into the bathroom he’s just sitting there– as if he has some important business meeting that I’m imposing upon! Sometimes he’ll pitifully meow at me, or lay down for me to pat his belly. But, most of the time, he just sits and stares. I need someone to tell me why he does this.
Is he depressed? Is his sitting in a shower a cry for help? I watched a documentary about Antarctica, entitled Encounters at the End of the World by Werner Herzog, and in the film Herzog asks a penguin expert if there is such thing as “insanity among Penguins,” the expert responds with:”They [Penguins] do get disoriented, and end up in places they shouldn’t be.” Then, in the next scene the camera follows a lone Penguin waddling off to his death. Is the shower Artemis’ waddle of death?
While Artemis isn’t a Penguin, I do worry about him being cooped up in my room for most of the day. He can’t speak, so I don’t know how this makes him feel, and I worry. Would his life be better if he’d been adopted by the two little boys that walked into Petsmart five minutes after I adopted him? Am I a horrible cat-owner? Is the shower a portal to a better life?
The bathroom is not the darkest part of my room, he has a a box underneath my bed, and a bed in my closet, so I know he doesn’t spend most of his day sitting in the shower because it’s dark. Artemis also hates getting wet, so I know it’s not to lay in the water from my showers. Sometimes he does lick at the drops that linger, but why does he stay? Does he think more water will magically appear for him?
He also waits on the mat outside of my shower when I’m in it. And after I get out he immediately jumps in and just sits! So, maybe it is the water, but I don’t believe it. There has to be something else at play. Maybe there are ghosts in my shower and he is trying to communicate with them? Or– stay with me here– he is trying to escape through the shower drain.
Whatever he’s doing in there, it needs to stop. I want to pee in the middle of the night in peace. I need freedom, and privacy. How do I communicate this to a cat? Any cat-people, please let me know how to dissuade my cat from sitting in my shower for hours. Thanks.
Anyone else have cats/pets that like to sit in strange places? Let me know all about your animals in the comments below!
Edit: Artemis is on Instagram if you want to follow him @artemisthesupercat
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