Muffin the Ninja Cat
When my kids were small, a friend – and I use that term
loosely – gave them a kitten. She was a tiny, grey – striped, tabby that looked
more like something her mother hacked up rather than gave birth to. She weighed no more than a couple of pounds
and most of that was hair. Three year
old Roxanne promptly named the little fuzzball Muffin…. and would not be swayed
to a different, cooler name. I mean really,
what kinda name for a cat is Muffin? Cats
should have cool, mysterious sounding names like Jezebel, Lucifer or Demonspawn. But Roxanne had her mind made up, so Muffin
it was.
From the beginning Muffin had a love – hate relationship
with Roxanne. She would snuggle beside
Roxanne at bedtime, purring contentedly, and then without warning swat her
viciously across the face with a dainty, razor sharp, claw. Perhaps she was offended by the way Roxanne
breathed – I don’t know. Or maybe she sensed
that Roxanne was about to make her the world’s biggest two pound scapegoat.
My evilly intelligent little daughter was soon to discover that
having a pet had its benefits in the getting out of trouble department. What
better way to deflect guilt from an incriminating situation than to blame
everything on a mute, defenseless animal?
The cat certainly couldn’t dispute her.
To Roxanne’s brilliant, three year old mind, it was fool-proof. But
bless her heart, she neglected to see the one glaring flaw in her otherwise
solid plan - her mother is no fool.
It began with the curtains. I was working in the house one
day when I heard a crash in the vicinity of Roxanne’s bedroom followed by a
muffled giggle. I rushed to the scene of the crime to find the bedroom curtains
and the blinds in a tangled heap on the floor.
Poor little Muffin was sitting amidst the rubble looking dazed and
unsure of how she got there. Roxanne was
bent over her bed, convulsed in giggles. The story I got was that Muffin was
climbing up the curtains and pulled the whole works down on top of her head. Ok….cats
are known for their love of climbing and my skills at hanging drapery are
questionable but come on, the kitten weighed two pounds soaking wet! The
curtains were plausible but…. the blinds? Let’s just say I had my doubts on the
validity of the story, but since it smacked of kitten mischief, I let it slide.
After that, Muffin became the household wrecking ball.
Who knocked the glass of punch over? – Muffin
Who smeared glue all over the floor? – Muffin
Who pulled all the leaves off this plant? – Muffin
Who spilled an entire bottle of shampoo in the bathtub? –
Muffin
The poor cat got blamed for everything and each time I had
to admit her guilt was at least plausible. That is until the infamous corn dog
event.
Even now I laugh at the memory. It wasn’t at all funny then – in fact I was
furious – but now it’s become one of the most precious memories I have. Roxanne
was well known for her voracious sweet- tooth and it was a constant battle between
us to get her to eat healthy food. From
the ages of two to five, the child survived on corn dogs, mac and cheese, and
chicken tenders but was surprisingly well under weight for her age and height. Getting her to eat fruit and vegetables was
next to impossible and I’m not ashamed to say I often resorted to that bit of
age-old parental wisdom – bribery.
Early on, I made a deal with both my children that if they
would at least taste new foods – a taste
being at least three good bites – then if they didn’t like it, I wouldn’t make
them eat it. Dalton, who was seemingly a
vegetarian sort from birth, was easy. He
loved salads and all sorts of veggies and fruits. Usually, after three bites,
he would finish whatever was on his plate.
Hard-headed Roxanne was a different story all-together. She viewed the three bite rule as a loophole
to get out of eating anything that wasn’t on her limited menu. I could give
Muffin a pill easier than I could get Roxanne to swallow three bites of
anything she deemed “yucky looking”. And
anything green was decidedly yucky looking. So Roxanne and I had a special
deal. If she would eat the three bites,
then she got a dessert. No bites, no
dessert. Another classic gambit from the parents play-book.
One evening I made steamed broccoli for dinner - don’t
groan, you did it too. I put three small
florets on Roxanne’s plate along with her corn dog and a few fries and sat her
down at the table. The battle began. No way was she going to put that broccoli
in her mouth. She gobbled down the fries easily and was about a third through
her corn dog when I reminded her that she needed to eat the broccoli before she
could have her dessert, which that night happened to be her very favorite –
vanilla cupcakes. That was my mistake.
She saw the cupcakes and all thoughts of anything else went by the
wayside. Her mission from that moment on
was to get to that cupcake. She even refused to finish her corn dog. Now, she could have taken the easy way, which
was also the right way, and forced down the three tiny pieces of broccoli but
no – she was far too devious for such simplicity as that. It’s a shame I didn’t know just how devious my
sweet little daughter was at that time. I wouldn’t have trusted her as much as
I did.
After arguing for almost an hour and steadfastly refusing to
allow Roxanne to leave the table until she’d eaten the broccoli, I was surprised
- and quite proud of myself for holding my ground I might add – when Roxanne
suddenly announced that she’d cleaned her plate and could she please have her
cupcake now. I turned around from the
sink and was amazed to see an almost clean plate. Nothing remained but a few crumbs and a smear
of yellow mustard.
Now, most intelligent people would have immediately wondered
– what happened to the corn dog stick? I
consider myself to be such an intelligent person but I suppose my relief at
having won the battle blinded me to that little piece of evidence. I praised her for being a brave girl and
trying something new while I handed her the eagerly desired cupcake. Sucker
Roxanne sat happily enjoying her prize, vanilla frosting
smeared across her beaming face, as I went about my household chores. I turned on the clothes dryer, which I
remembered contained my work clothes for the next day, finished cleaning the
kitchen and helped Dalton with his homework.
A while later, I went to get my clothes out of the dryer. Little Muffin was curled up on top of it,
contentedly snoozing, enjoying the toasty warmth the appliance was putting
out. She seemed quite angry at being
disturbed from her cozy roost and hissed at me when I shooed her down. I opened
the dryer door and to my horror found a mustard-plastered mess. There, perched
atop my white linen pants, was the remains of a corn dog, stick and all. The broccoli had all but disintegrated, leaving
sloughs of green stains on every article of clothing in the dryer and sticky smudges
of bright yellow mustard were permanently dyed into my best clothes. I exploded into fury and screamed the first
and only name that came to mind – ROXANNE!!!
To her credit, she immediately presented herself, completely
unafraid of my wrath. I made a classic parental blunder and asked her how it
came about that a corn-dog had found its way into my clothes dryer. I knew how it got there, I knew exactly who
did it. I suppose I asked because I wanted
to give her an opportunity to tell me the truth; make it a teachable moment. But,
as my friend Michael once pointed out, why would a child tell you the truth
when she knows the end result is going to be punishment? They’re children, not
idiots. So, I shouldn’t have been at all surprised when she looked up at me
with those big brown innocent eyes and said “Muffin did it”
I was rather taken
aback at her response. I had expected an
“I dunno” or “not me” or even the
classic - I’ve suddenly gone blind – ploy of “what corn dog?” But this sweet
child, with complete malice aforethought, blamed the kitten. Being three years
old, I’m sure she didn’t see the obvious flaws in her story so I thought I
would help her by pointing them out.
“How did Muffin open the dryer Roxanne?”
“She was hiding until
she saw you open it and then put the corn dog in while you weren’t looking”
“How did Muffin pick up the plate Roxanne?”
“She didn’t, she
stole the corn dog off my plate with her teeths”
“The corn dog is bigger than Muffin Roxanne, how did she
carry it all the way to the dryer?”
“She’s stronger than she looks Mommy.”
“Why didn’t you tell me Muffin put the corn dog in the
dryer?”
This conversation had
passed the border of ridiculousness and taken a sharp turn onto the hiway of
absurdity.
“Cause you would spank her and I’d have to eat broccoli
instead of cupcake.”
Well, Kudos for that half-truth
I suppose.
Roxanne was convicted on the charges of duplicity, perjury
and making her mother feel foolish and was punished accordingly. She received one of the few spankings she
ever got and was sentenced to no dessert for two weeks. That night, after the
angry tears – both Roxanne’s and mine - subsided, I peeked into her room to
find her fast asleep. Muffin was
stretched out on the pillow beside her, stroking her little kitten paw through
Roxanne’s hair as if soothing her. When she realized I was watching, she shook
her paw free of the hair clinging to it and – I swear - the little demon smiled
at me - and swatted Roxanne across the back of the head, digging her claws into
the tender flesh of her scalp. Roxanne jerked awake at the sharp pain and, of
course, the first thing she saw was me.
Score one for the
kitten – maybe she wasn’t as guiltless as I thought.
Then came the coups de gras.
One Sunday afternoon, I had a horrible headache. One of those headaches that can make you beg
for the silence and darkness of the grave. Trying to find some relief, I took a few Tylenol
and laid down on the couch with a cold rag over my face, charging Dalton with
looking after his sister and keeping her quiet.
I managed to doze off but hadn’t been asleep long when I was
rudely awakened by a deafening crash. Lurching up off the couch, I went reeling
down the hall to see what, or who, was broken.
Outside the bathroom door, my two children stood frozen in horror.
Muffin sat plastered against the backs of Roxanne’s legs, trembling with fear. I didn’t waste time asking stupid questions
and pushed them aside to see what they were staring at.
It looked like a small bomb had exploded in the
bathroom. The toilet tank top was broken
with half of it lying at a crazy angle in the tank and the other half shattered
on the floor. Porcelain dust hung in the
air and floated to the carpet like a fine snow. Roxanne’s doll stroller was turned up on its
side in the bathtub and Dalton’s toy cars were strewn about the floor. My sleep addled brain searched for an answer
to this bizarre tableau and hit upon, what I saw as, the logical guilty party;
Dalton. Normally, I was a level headed
parent and thought before I acted. But this time, I’m ashamed to say, my rage and
disoriented state overtook me. My poor
son was about to get what would have amounted to a beating. I snatched him up
by the arm and had the other arm in full swing when I felt Roxanne tugging
demandingly at my clothes and heard her crying “Mommy! Mommy! Don’t!! Dalton
didn’t do it!!!”
I stopped short of landing
the first blow and glared at her, breathing furiously down on her upturned face
like an enraged bull while still gripping a terrified Dalton by the arm.
“Who did it then!?” I demanded “You?”
She gulped hard, but hardly even thought before saying, quite
convincingly…..
“Muffin”
I was totally poleaxed. I knew she was lying but there was
something about the way she said it so guilelessly that caught me off guard. I
let go of Dalton’s arm and he took the opportunity to run for the sanctuary of
his room.
The rage drained out of me like water in a sink as I
squatted down to look my precious daughter in the eye.
“Would you care to explain to me how Muffin did this?” I
asked. Secretly, I couldn’t wait to hear
the answer. I knew this was going to be good.
Roxanne only briefly looked down at the floor before looking
me dead in the eyes and then began her tale.
“Well, you see Mommy, Muffin was walking on the top of the
potty – I told her she shouldn’t be up there - and she slipped and she gots her paw caught on
the thing and the potty pinched her….it hurt really bad.” She added the last part for emphasis, hoping
to gain an amount of sympathetic understanding for the poor beast.
“I see” I said, trying to keep the stern look on my face.
“But how did Muffin break the potty?”
“She got mad because the potty pinched hers paw, so she
jumped down and picked up my baby buggy and……WHAM!!! She hit the potty with it.”
I had absolutely no response. I slowly and calmly stood up, walked down the
hall and out the back door into the yard and there….doubled over laughing
hysterically.
How ingenious of her.
I don’t think she deliberately knew that telling such an outlandish tale
would diffuse the anger I was feeling, but that’s exactly the effect that it
had. I think she probably was desperately trying to save her big brother and if
that was her goal, succeeded
masterfully. I knew Muffin didn’t break the toilet but after that I didn’t care
really how it happened. I knew the real
culprit and later that night she and I had a long discussion about it. She
never fully admitted to what she had done though, still insisting that Muffin
had been the one to strike the fatal blow.
I pointed out to her that Muffin was physically incapable of committing the
offense, to which Roxanne replied,
“You just never seen the things she can do Mommy. She’s
tricky”
Muffin sat on the pillow, listening to the whole
conversation rather intently and swishing her little tail around. She had a strange, self- satisfied look on face.
Not long after that, I married. My new husband moved into our home with his
cat, Sunshine, who was the antithesis of his name. He was big and round and orange but that’s
where the resemblance ended. He was so mean spirited he made Grumpy Cat look
like Pollyanna; Muffin hated him immediately.
It wasn’t long after they moved in, Muffin got out one day and ran away
into the woods. We never saw her
again. Poor Roxanne was inconsolable and
cried and called for her companion for weeks. It broke my heart.
Years later during Roxanne’s illness, we returned to a state
of battling about what she was and wasn’t eating. Roxanne’s gastroparesis made it impossible
for her to eat normally. If she swallowed anything, it simply came back
up. But being a teenager, it was hard
for her to be denied her favorite foods. And she felt like such a freak, having to be
fed through a tube and an IV that occasionally she would eat something –
knowing full well she was going to throw it up – just to have the pleasure of
tasting food and feeling like a normal human being. Every time I caught her doing it, I scolded
her adamantly. She would remind me that the doctor had told her she should try
to eat whenever she wanted. I reminded her that the doctor didn’t have to hear
her gagging and crying for hours afterward.
One day I came home from work and found an empty container
of juice and a half empty box of cookies on the kitchen counter. Frustrated, I called Roxanne to the kitchen
and handed her the evidence. Stupidly I asked, “Who ate these cookies?”
Her big brown eyes twinkled and she grinned at me mischievously
“Muffin ”
She got me again.
