Genghis Cat is one angry mo’ fo’ of a kitten.
Of course, we may have somewhat shaped his destiny by calling him Genghis Cat. Let’s face it: the pages of history contain few killers by the name of Mr Fluffkins.
Unlike the other characters featured in this blog, I’m not giving Genghy a nom de guerre. A cat this cranky shouldn’t really have his anonymity preserved – if anything, he should have an AVO taken out against him. I don’t care to count the number of times an unsuspecting and already hard-done-by parent has been attacked, unprovoked, on the way to the toilet in the early hours of the morning.
But it wasn’t always this way. He came to us as a small grey bundle who hid in corners and who I cradled gently to emulate the warmth and security of the mother cat he’d left behind. He was the little cat that turned me instantly from a distinctly *non*-cat person to a “I-like-this-cat” person. As my dear friend KT said, “Well it’s just about now in the cycle of things that you’d be pregnant again.” She had a point. We’d been churning out children every two years and my husband’s vasectomy had put an end to all that. A kitten seemed the perfect thing to fill my achingly empty arms.
But what we didn’t realise when we brought him home was that there was a Jungle Beastie lurking within – one that could turn any household chore into a siege situation. Nothing enhances washing the dishes quite like the jaws of a small creature around your ankles.
Nor did we realise that, by acquiring a cat, we would immediately sever the bonds of friendships with a number of people harbouring previously undisclosed cat allergies. Whether or not they really had the allergies or just saw a convenient way out of our lives, we’ll never know.
Nor did we foresee my husband would have to give up his morning meditation. It’s hard to feel at one with the universe with a cat clamped firmly on your vitals – although some might argue this is a true example of instant karma.
And we certainly never dreamed that getting a kitten could further damage our already sagging public image. My typically disheveled children now have cat scratches across their hands and faces to join the Milo stains on their shirts and their perennially missing shoes.
Still, we all love Genghy. We feed him, we play with him, we pat him, we clean his kitty litter tray (although, with the kitty litter, by “we” I mean me). And most of all, we admire him because, as the smallest member of the household, he has garnered a lot of power. Even the fearsome Tiddles McGee (aged 21 months) is learning to show him deference.
But now I fear that some greater mischief is afoot. Since we did our civic duty by getting Genghy de-sexed and microchipped, there’s been a new edge to it all: a sense of growing resentment, a rising tension between beast and owners, a promise of payback Big Time.
If I happen to look out into the garden, more often than not I see him there looking straight back at me, as if he were channeling Robert De Niro himself from “Cape Fear”. Even as I type, he’s out there somewhere, lifting weights and getting tatts, and watching… planning… waiting…
Not Drowning, Mothering. 
I love your account of Genghis Cat – he really will be plotting and training. We have the same cat. Having found ‘Frodo’ as a kitten alone under a rock and looking somewhat dishevelled I might have expected him to be eternally relieved to be with us. Not so. Perhaps he was pissed off with us for naming him after the actor we (principally me and the eldest daughter) fancied in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ film – or because I shouted at him when I didn’t want to shout at a person or the wall. Anyway, he has attacked us from every angle – especially through the grass in the garden and from round the corner at the bottom of the stairs (I have heard a lot of ‘yeee-awww’s). After fighting with him at the Cattery once I then spent an entire holiday with fellow hotel guests glancing across at me over their eggs – ‘the poor self-harmer’. Anyway – getting to my point – he is now 5, we have recently returned from holiday whilst he has served 2 weeks in the Cattery (I wore long sleeves and gloves this time) and surprise! – he has been a cuddly bundle of love since we came back. Well that may be an exaggeration but he is has started sitting on laps (a lifetime first) and no ‘Cape Fear’-esque rugby tackles for weeks (another first). It has been suggested to me that Frodo’s been mixed up with someone else’s cat – which, I’m thinking, if is the case, god help the sweet old lady who is now wrestling on the parquet flooring with him.
If I work out the secret to this transformation I will let you know. It’s been nice for us to walk around the house without having to flatten ourselves by the wall every time we approach a corner!