This is a true story. All names have been changed to protect the innocent…AND the guilty…DUM DUM.

My cat is The Worst Cat in the World.

Other people might have bad cats, destructive cats, the Cat from Hell etc. But they don’t have the full package that makes my cat The Worst Cat in the World.

If you had witnessed the contortions I have made in my life to accommodate this cat and keep him healthy, safe and happy, you would agree with me; he is a unique feline! This is a good thing, because I don’t think the world could survive two MC’s.

It isn’t just a matter of having a quirk or two, either. All cats have those and the internet is filled with one-off videos of cats showing their true nature: knocking things over, stealing food, or going into electric-cat mode when something scares them.

Hey, I like those videos too! And I agree, those cats have some skills. But they are nothing, NOTHING like living with The Worst Cat in the World.

The Acquisition

Let’s start with The Acquisition. Any cat called The Worst Cat in the World must have a good origin story, right? I mean, this is not the kind of cat who grows up normally or is just adopted off a pet ad on Craigslist when someone finds a litter of sick stray kittens.

No, those kinds of cats go on to become meme or YouTube viral and make their owners millions.

The Worst Cat in the World’s beginnings are shrouded in mystery. I know there is a story there. Maybe he was raised by undercover Russian spies who had to flee when the the Willamette Week’s high caliber journalists started looking into their real-estate deals?

Maybe he bitten as a kitten (a normal kitten then, of course) by a radioactive salmon swimming in the Reed Canyon that transformed him into The Worst Cat in the World?

Or aliens. He could be an alien. He is probably an alien.

It would make sense if this last one were true…it fits. It just does.

Picture this: Portland, Oregon. Winter of 2009.

The stock market has tanked, the housing crisis is off and running, mortgages are dropping like flies and sadly (and not mentioned much in the news media) pet animals are being abandoned all over the place as people lose their jobs and homes.

I’m living paycheck to paycheck, but pretty happy with things overall. Unlike a lot of folks I have stable housing (and not in a stable). I rent a room, along with my boyfriend Suckerfish, and share the commons with a buddy of mine in his house.

I have a cat, Queen Boo Boo. Suckerfish has a dog, Ajax. Our roommate has a cat and a dog. We make a nice happy little unofficial tribe.

On the day in question, I’m the first into work at the vet clinic. It is still dark outside, with no hint of daylight, and it is cold. When I pull in to park I see a box by the back door.

No, wait, it’s a pet crate, I realize.

Wrapped in a sheet. About the size of a medium dog crate, so not so small.

“Ohhhh, this is gonna be good” I think to myself. “Let’s play a game and guess what is in the Mystery Crate!”

Based on several prior experiences with the special subcategory of items referred to as “things found abandoned in boxes at the doors of vet clinics,” this will contain at least one and possibly a combination of the following:

• A wild animal
• A dead animal
• A young animal
• A litter of animals
• A random assortment of bottles, cans, underwear and drug related paraphernalia (this clinic is in a really nice part of town. The strip club next door added so much ambiance to the ‘hood)

“It’s a wild animal or a litter, that’s my bet! If I win I will treat myself to some french fries!” I say aloud. Time to steel myself to peek under the sheet and see if I had won my bet.

I approach the crate. It is silent. I pull back the tightly wrapped sheet.

I see a bag of cat food, two nice new-looking bowls and…..a cat.

This cat takes one look at me, blinks sleepily, and then rushes to the door. It has a loud meow. And it is gorgeous!

Big beautiful pale green eyes, open very wide, and a strange grey colored fur with paler stripes on the body and face. Short fur. I want this cat.

“It will be mine, oh yes….it will be mine” I think as I’m dragging the crate in the door. Proof that quoting Wayne’s World will lead to absurd situations…so surprising, NOT!

I set him up in a big cat kennel (yeah, I establish it is a “him”), with a litter box and some of his food. All the while he is loving me up. He won’t stop! The cat is head-butting me, crawling in my lap and arms, weaving between my legs. He is still meowing, but with a little less volume now that I’m paying attention to him.

This is the nicest, most friendly cat I have ever met. And he doesn’t seem to get startled at all. My coworkers start arriving, bringing an assortment of dogs and such with them (perk to working in vet med…bring-your-pets-to-work day is every day!), and it doesn’t bother him a bit. In fact, he acts more like a dog than a cat.

He doesn’t want to be in the kennel though. He cries loudly at the door when I lock him in.

“Listen, Mystery Cat, you just have to deal for a bit. I have to go earn some kibble. But chill man, we will find you a home, I promise.” Of course, I can’t promise it will be with me.

I’m a renter. My buddy is nice enough to allow Suckerfish and me to live in his house for a tiny amount of rent. I’m lucky that he lets us have the two pets we have. There is no way he will let me have another cat.

I know. I’ve asked.

The work day passes as it usually does, and I keep visiting with MC. Others pick up on the name and start calling him that as well. He gets an exam, and seems healthy. Age unknown; adult but not a senior. So, maybe 3-6 years old? Neutered. No fleas. He tests negative for the feline viruses (FeLv/FIV). Slightly chubby.

I head home to my “weekend.” I will be back on Thursday. The clinic is going to keep MC until we can foster or rehome him.

I spend my weekend working on my roommate to let me take in MC. I promise that it is just a temporary foster placement, until I can find him the home he deserves (this is why I can’t foster pets. The home he deserves is with me!).

When I arrive at work Thursday morning, there is a problem with MC. They tell me that he hasn’t used the litter box to pee since we found him.

That was Monday. It is Thursday. This cat hasn’t peed in three days!

He doesn’t seem distressed, though. MC is eating and drinking. He still runs out of the kennel at every chance and loves me up. He just refuses to pee in the litter box.

The kennel he is in isn’t huge, but it’s big enough to house a sleeping golden retriever. We board cats in them all the time. Surely that can’t be the problem, right?

The vet takes a look at him. No surprise that his bladder is huge. The vet suggests I take him into an empty exam room, give him a litter box and leave him for a half hour.

It works. It doesn’t take a half hour either. The second we get in the room and I put the box on the floor he leaps in and starts peeing…and peeing…and peeing. I think there was a good two inches of urine in the box when he finished.

This refusing to pee while in a kennel at the clinic was, I now recognize, the first sign that MC is determined to have things his way or not at all.

It is not the last time I see this trait.

Thursday afternoon, MC comes home with me. He screams the entire way home. I can’t adequately describe the sounds that he is making. There is no level of radio volume that can drown these sounds out. I’m even getting funny looks from people in the cars next to me at red lights. It was a fun hour for us both.

I get him home and set him up in a spare room. I don’t know how he will react to our pets, and I don’t want any problems. I’m trying to follow all the rules of introducing a new pet to a pet-filled household. All for naught, because he refuses to stay in the room.

The house is old, and the spare room door is a little hinkey. It closes, but the latch is really tricky and usually doesn’t catch unless you slam the door hard. And then it is hard to pop back open.

I hang out with MC for a while, he cuddles and explores and keeps coming back for more attention. Finally I head to leave and lock him in by shutting the door. Time to give the other animals some attention and relax with a book for a bit.

A few minutes later, as I lay on the couch…Plop! MC lands on on my chest and plunks himself down. His fur is up my nose. I can’t hear him him purring, but I can feel a little rumble. Ok then, I know his opinion.

We try the room thing again a few minutes later. This time I watch the door after I close it. I see his paw snake into the crack under the door. A little twist of the paw, a little claw action and the door pops open.

He has just revealed another tool in his Swiss Army knife-like collection of abilities he uses to taunt humans.

“Thumbs? Who needs thumbs? Silly human,” I imagine him saying to me.

He stares up at me with his strange, wide-open eyes.

We try several more rounds of this game over the next few days. I know how to train cats, and I am determined to convince him to just stay in that room for a little while. He is equally determined to teach me that I know nothing about determination or training cats. He wins.

I tell myself I’m giving up because there is really no reason to keep him separated from the rest of the tribe. He is not bothered by any of our animals. MC is a really chill cat, in a anxious sort of way. He is active and curious, but he doesn’t get startled or scared like most cats do.

When Ajax rushes towards him on their first meeting, barking and trying to chase him, he just stands there looking at her with his big, odd eyes. He isn’t worried.

“Hey, is that any way to greet your new roommate?” he seems to be asking her.

Suckerfish falls in love with MC on the first night. He is not a cat guy (he thinks), but THIS cat! How can you not love this cat? It just isn’t possible for any of us.

“We should get a house, so we can keep MC,” Suckerfish says to me one evening.

“Well, yeah, I want to keep him too. But we can’t afford to buy a house. And what kind of people buy a house in this market? Things are going to get worse before they get better. We would be underwater in our mortgage before we even moved in!” I say in reply.

“We should keep him,” Suckerfish insists.

“No, we are not buying a house to keep a cat! We can’t afford to buy a house, anyway.” I end the conversation sadly.

Turns out I was wrong about that too. The happiest I have ever been to be wrong!

A month later, we bought a house. And we kept the cat.

We got married too. That’s another story, however, entitled “How my mortgage broker became my marriage broker.”

After we moved in and settled down, it became clear that MC is not a normal cat in other ways. He is not stealthy or athletic. MC does not give off the sleek, contented predator vibe that so many cats naturally possess.

MC is downright clumsy, unable to do things successfully that normal cats don’t think twice about doing. He loses his balance jumping the foot between the couch and the coffee table. He falls off things on a regular basis. Not tricky things, either.

He is so careful, too!

That’s what makes it so funny to watch him biff it.

Here is a typical set of MC-moves: he decides he wants to go from the kitchen into the living room and onto the couch. The easy way to do this is to walk from the kitchen into the living room, around (or over) the coffee table and then onto the couch. It’s all of 6 feet from the kitchen door. But no, cats have their own logic.

The dogs are in the living room as well (we added a golden retriever to the tribal mix the summer we bought the house). He isn’t afraid of them, but he doesn’t feel like walking around them on the floor. They like to hassle him. So he jumps up onto the TV stand. And misses. It is only a foot and a half off the ground. He can stand on his hind legs and his head and shoulders are well clear of the top, but that tiny hop is still beyond his balance this time.

The dogs see him and start to get interested in the proceedings. He makes a successful second attempt. He sits there for a few minutes, blocking the video game that I’m playing on the TV. Then he saunters over towards the other corner of the stand, knocking over the soundbar in the process.

The dogs are now very interested in him.

He carefully measures the 6 inches between the stand and speaker, which are about the same height. MC thinks about it for another minute, then steps across. He almost falls off the speaker but manages to stay on. The dogs have now joined the fun.

They stand there before him, wagging tails and egging him on. His next move is up the bookcase. It’s one of those folding, 3-foot high deals you see in every college student apartment. He spends a few minutes ignoring the dogs while doing complex physics equations in his head. It’s time to make his move.

He reaches up and puts his paws on the top shelf. Remember, he is already elevated on the speaker. He just needs a little jump and…

He somehow manages to knock all the books off the shelf, onto the dogs below, while simultaneously hitting the “OFF” button on the speaker, which also turns off the TV right at the moment I am in a heavy fight with a troll. Then he lands on the pile of books n’ dogs.

A minute later he takes three steps from the pile, arrives at the couch, jumps up and settles down in his spot. The 15 minute trip from the kitchen has really tired him out.

Sharpening his kitchen tools.

Ok, you will agree that I have an unusual cat. So far, though, I haven’t mentioned anything that could justify my claim that he is The Worst Cat in the World.

So he can open doors with his paw if they are not securely latched (yes, that was not a one time trick. He is really, really good at it). Annoying, possibly dangerous if it is the wrong door, but not a huge deal.

He is clumsy, sure, but other cats are clumsy too.

The litter box thing is weird but not really an issue in the home; he uses the litter boxes in the house normally.

He is a big love and gets on great with the other dogs and cat, so what’s the problem?

It took time, but as the months passed he revealed his his true passion in life to us.

Food.

I have never known a cat that is as food motivated as MC. And he isn’t the kind of food motivated pet that would be trainable, oh no. I’ve tried that.

It doesn’t begin immediately after we move into the new house. The whole pattern takes time to develop. It starts when I noticed that things left on the kitchen counter are on the floor when I get home from work. Then I see that the cabinets and even drawers are getting left open as well.

There was half a bag of chips that Suckerfish left on the side crate that got mysteriously emptied (some people have the table-kind of side tables. In our house we have the huge dog kennel that doubles as a side table. It is the only place in the living room that the golden’s tail can’t knock over drinks).

Then MC starts jumping up on the kitchen counter right in front of me.

Now that doesn’t fly in my house. Cats should not be on kitchen counters. My other cat has been trained from kittenhood that counters were a no-cat zone. So I know what to do when MC stars doing this.

I get a spray bottle, fill it with water, and wait. Sure enough, there he goes onto the counter, brazen as can be! I ready my weapon and unleash the fury on him, shouting “Get Off!” as I hose him down.

He ignores me. Or rather, he looks at me with his usual, wide-eyed expression. And then continues to explore the counter. He is not a fan of the showers, but it doesn’t bother him enough to drive him off.

That didn’t go as expected. So I pick him up and put him down on the floor. He jumps back up (he somehow manages this without falling). I put him down. He jumps up. We continue this dance for a while, until he decides to go check out the food situation in the living room.

Long story short, the spray bottle never works on him.

Oh, if I catch him unaware he might startle slightly, but it never gets him off the counter. With every other cat I’ve used this technique on, they get to the point where they see the spray bottle coming and they run! Not MC.

The only time using water has worked to get him off the counter was when I used the sink hose on him. Full blast. And it only worked because he was soaked and slipped off.

So I step it up a notch. I try the tape move, you know, using masking tape with the sticky side up taped to the counter. Cats are suppose to hate the sticky feeling and avoid it. MC might hate it, but it doesn’t stop him from counter surfing. And it is really hard to use your kitchen if the counters are covered in sticky tape.

Finally I get a product called Scat Cat. It is basically a really expensive can of compressed air. The top screws on, and has a motion sensor attached. When something crosses the path, it sends out a blast of air that is supposed to scare the cat away.

MC jumps on the counter, gets blasted with air, loses his balance and falls off. Now THIS has gotten his attention! He does not jump right back up. He studies things for a few minutes. Then he jumps up in another spot-BLAST-and jumps back down. His tail is twitching. He is annoyed. He is not on the counter.

Success!

Except…

Sure, the Scat Cat works for a while. We burn through a lot of expensive air. Thing is, they don’t have a huge range. It’s impossible to cover the entire kitchen with it. And MC isn’t the only thing that sets it off. Every time Suckerfish or I go into the kitchen we get blasted as well.

Still, in the kitchen counter wars, I’m happy to have won a battle. Especially because it is my last victory.

Within a few weeks, MC knows the range of the Scat, and has figured out where the air is coming from. He starts to come in at it from the side, so it doesn’t trigger.

He sits there and waves his paw in front of it, until it runs out of air. Then he can counter surf to his heart’s content! Or he comes up behind it and knocks it into the sink. Same result, really.

It eventually becomes cost prohibitive to spend $20 on packs of compressed air that last 20 minutes a piece.

The Scat Cat is retired.

The counter surfing picks up. We can’t leave any food on the counter now. MC learns to play tag-team with the golden retriever, Deuce.

Say there is a loaf of bread accidentally left out. MC will get on the counter and chew on it for a while, eating all the bread and plastic he can until the golden see’s what he is up to. Then MC will knock the bread off the counter to the floor, where Deuce finishes the job.

We discover that MC shares something else in common with Suckerfish: a deep, abiding love for McDonalds cheeseburgers. He is almost frantic when we bring McDonalds into the house! We have to start hiding food in the microwave and oven to keep him out of it.

Until the day I watched him open the microwave to get to the McDonalds hidden inside. I wish I had this on video.

The microwave is located in a small cubby built into the wall of the kitchen. There is no counter in front of it. Just the hole the unit fits into. It is at counter height, so around 4 feet off the ground.

It opens by pulling on the handle, which is just a cut-out that your fingers slip up into. Reach in, pull towards yourself, and it’s open.

MC knew there were McDonalds cheeseburgers in there. He had already tried to “help” Suckerfish eat a couple of them. He was determined to get to them.

By this point in our relationship, I have learned to take his determination seriously.

But still, there is NO WAY he is going to be able to do this!

He does it. It takes him 20 minutes, and a bunch of tries. He may be clumsy, but he is also highly motivated!

He jumps straight up in the air in front of the wall and microwave and tries to get his front paw under the handle while simultaneously kicking off the wall with his rear feet. Once he finally figures out the timing BAM! That sucker is open.

I’m standing in the kitchen doorway watching the show. Unlike normal cats, who act sneaky when they are doing something they shouldn’t be doing, MC has never been shy to misbehave right in front of me.

So now the microwave is no longer a safe-haven for food. I’ve never seen him repeat this trick, but I have no doubt he could do it again if he wanted to.

Then there is the oven, the last bastion of safe food-storage left in the kitchen. We arrive back from a trip to discover our old natural gas stove top and oven combo unit is no longer working. The joys of homeownership. I love the new unit, though, so all ends well.

Or so I thought.

I wake up one morning soon after, to the smell of rotten eggs. Half-awake, I follow my nose to the kitchen. There I find my new kitchen unit…with two of the burners on full blast pumping gas into the house. Since it is a gas stove top, you have to leave the knob in the ignition position until the flame catches. These two burners are both on “High” with no flame. Awesome.

I turn things off, open windows and make sure that the furnace does not turn on and blow us all up. I’m trying to figure it out; how did this happened? How long have these things been on?

Long enough that I smelled the gas in the bedroom (with the door closed).

Ok, Suckerfish and I were asleep. The dogs were gated in the bedroom with us. The two cats were the only animals outside of the bedroom. I usually kick MC out of the room about an hour before my alarm goes off, because he goes into food-mode and starts knocking things around trying to get me to get up and feed him.

This is one war he consistently loses, by the way, and I am proud to be the winner.

He can rampage all he wants in the morning. I’ll just kick him out of the room and go back to sleep. Winner!

By process of deduction, it had to have been one of the two cats. And I know that Boo Boo probably didn’t do it. So that leaves MC…

Sure enough, over the next few weeks I find the burners turned on several more times; no flames, just gas filling the room.

I never catch MC doing it, so I have no idea if he is hitting the knobs accidentally, while jumping up onto the stove, or if it is a more deliberate move on his part. Eventually I just remove the knobs when I’m not using the stove top. People do this all the time for toddlers. I’m doing it for my cat.

What else can you do when your cat is trying to blow-up the house?

Living with The Worst Cat in the World.

Years pass by. The kitchen rampages have gotten worse. MC usually starts to amp up about two hours before dinner time (by the time we feed him, at same time every day, he is screaming at us continuously) and carry on for a good couple of hours after dinner as well.

Post dinnertime is his prime-time for kitchen mischief. He has learned to knock things off the counter in hopes that they break open and provide him with something tasty.

This is a different behavior from knocking things off the coffee table or side crate, by the way. He does that just to make sure we are paying attention to him. Knocking things about in the kitchen is all about food.

The light-weight plastic butter keeper doesn’t last long. A glass version works better, but he still manages to knock the heavy lid off and get to the butter sometimes.

One day I come home and find a previously unopened jar of pickles (it had been in the cabinet) smashed to bits on the kitchen floor. There was a bit of juice amid the glass shards, but no pickles left.

Yes, he ate a jar of pickles. A cat. An obligate carnivore.

I guess he didn’t get that memo.

He discovers that he can knock over the kitchen garbage can, pry open the locked lid and feast on any leavings. The only way we can keep him out of the garbage is to fill the bottom with 50 pounds of slate rock we have lying around. Now it is too heavy to tip over. Seriously.

Any plates, bowls or flatware that are not immediately placed in the dishwasher will be licked clean. He will demolish a stack of dirty plates in the sink to get to anything lickable.

He has learned to open the dog food bin and help himself (and Deuce) to the kibble. At first, I thought Suckerfish was leaving it unlatched after feeding the tribe. Until I caught MC unlocking it one evening.

So we have to turn it so the latch faces the wall. This works…IF the container is always pushed flush to the wall, and IF the bin isn’t empty enough that MC can push it out on his own.

I have recorded a few of these adventures. In one video, there is an inch between the dog food bin and the wall. You can see MC’s paw reach up and flip the latch open. A minute later he is opening the lid and jumping inside.

Another video I have recorded is just about one of the funniest things I have ever seen him do, and I’m glad I thought to catch it.

It was a weekend morning, early, just after getting up and feeding everyone. I’m hanging on the couch, reading a book and drinking coffee. I’m facing the side crate we use as a table. I see with my peripheral vision that MC is on the crate, and he is doing something odd. So I look up for a better view…and find him standing there with a full size chip bag inverted over his head!

The bag is empty. Suckerfish left it up there while he was gaming the night before.

At first I think the bag is stuck on his head. But MC is also making these weird bobbing motions, so the bag is rocking up and down a bit but not hard enough to fall off. It takes me a second, and then I realize that he is shaking the crumbs down from the bottom of the bag and licking them up.

I laugh so hard I almost fall off the couch! I have since seen him do this a bunch of times.

It is another one of his patented moves.

Living with an animal like this is an exercise in frustration. No matter what I do to try and keep him out of things, he finds a way around my obstructions.

I try using those puzzle devices for pets, where they have to figure out how to get to the food hidden inside. Seems like a natural fit for a cat like him, right?

My other cats enjoy these activities, but not MC, oh no! He is not going to work for cat food. Perhaps if I used McDonalds cheeseburgers instead, he would play. He will actually skip eating his dinner if I try and use a maze bowl or other puzzle device on him.

His mischief can not be channeled. I give up. After 5 years, I give up.

And then he throws another curve-ball our way…

Strike one…Strike two!

One night 4 years ago, he blocks (can’t pee), suddenly and with no warning. No signs before that he is having any problems. One minute he can pee fine, the next he is frantically unable to pass urine.

Despite regular blood work and urine tests, we have never detected any crystals or infections in his bladder. After he blocks, of course his urine is filled with crystals.

He spends two nights in the hospital, and once it is clear that his block is not simple and that we will not be able to bring him home as expected, we are faced with an emergency decision: either we move him to a specialty surgeon and have a major, radical operation done, or we euthanize him.

Four thousand dollars and some change later, I’ve learned a new thing about MC, and he is home and recovering.

I’ve learned that he really does care about us. He is such a friendly cat that it has always been hard to tell if he felt anything special for his tribe, or was just happy to have folks to hang around with.

When I go to pick him up from the surgeons, they mention that he has refused to eat for them. MC not eat?? That is so not like him.

Now I’m worried.

They take me back to say “Hi.” I can tell he is drugged to the gills. He doesn’t even recognize me at first. As soon as I open the kennel he sees it is me, head-butts me and starts purring loudly. Between purrs and head-butts and trying to get in my arms, he gulps down bites of food.

I guess he just needed me there to inspire his appetite. Or he thought I had abandoned him…after all, he had been abandoned at a vet clinic before!

This is the first time I have ever heard him purr. Before this, his purr was almost subsonic. I would feel it, if he was lying on me, but even if he was against my head I couldn’t hear it.

Now he purrs often, loudly enough to hear and not just feel. He also has taken to sleeping on my pillow or even in my arms every night.

Yes, he missed us. He is bonded to us. Four thousand dollars hurt, for sure. But having him in our lives is priceless.

You get use to living with The Worst Cat in the World.

MC still rampages around the kitchen, and even jumps up while I’m trying to prep things. He has regular urinary crisis’ and is on a veterinary urinary diet, for all the good it does a cat that eats everything he shouldn’t! MC is now under foot so often that we step on him at least once a day. Then he screams at us…but stays underfoot

I may have played with this story a bit here and there, to help it flow. But everything I have written about MC is true, and if anything I have left things out. I have not embellished MC’s behavior. This is a true story.

Now you know, I really do have The Worst Cat in the World. He might be an alien in disguise, conducting experiments on us as he drives us crazy with his antics. He is the most amazing, loving cat; his saving grace, because I don’t think we could handle living with him otherwise.

It is this unique mixture of Big Love and Pure Asshole that makes him The Worst Cat in the World.