Hi. My name is Tunch. I know my owner has 3 throws on the couches and the lazyboy, there are two pet beds and five pet pads scattered strategically for my use throughout the house, and there is even a ratty old green blanket on the spare bed in the guest bedroom, which is normally closed to keep me out. Which is why I found this unprotected portion of the guest bed the best place in the whole wide world to sleep.
I just give up. I wish I knew how he was getting into that room. If he has figured out “doorknobs” I am screwed.
EdTheRed
Tunch FTW. Again.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Owner? OWNER?? Sorry, Mr. Cole– you’re just staff.
SpotWeld
All hail Trunch!!!
Bulworth
My owner should pay attention to where I like to lay and put the stupid throws and blankees there. Then he wouldn’t get mad when I get hair all over his precious furniture.
elmo
The main purpose of all furniture is to provide a comfy place for the animals. If I can find an unoccupied spot to wedge my own butt in, that’s just gravy.
Elisabeth
I have a wing chair I’ve never sat in ~ I’m not allowed. It’s her highness’s throne and I’m just a servant.
licensed to kill time
You have been assimilated. Tunch is going to rest his bones wherever the heck he wants to, get used to it.
robertdsc
Tunch iz king!
Pangloss
I have a cat named Dora— short for Pandora– who has figured out the sliding door to the pantry.
John Cole
@Pangloss: Dora the Explorer!
Gregory
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: You own a dog. You feed a cat.
eemom
you leave that kitty be! He’s comfy. And cute.
Paul in KY
I have the ‘handle’ door knobs (they’re oh so elegant) & my male cat CB has learned to reach up on his hind legs & open the doors. He hasn’t figured out pulling them open yet (to get out of room), but he will.
John, just wait till Tunch learns how to use the microwave.
Legalize
Cole, you own nothing. You are “the help” until Tunch becomes displeased with you and learns how to grip a baseball bat.
Roger Moore
@Bulworth:
Doesn’t work. I think the underlying problem is that cats don’t like lying on the throws and blankets. When you move them to what you think is the spot the cat likes, his preferences will change to a different spot that’s now blanket and throw free. The only workable solution is to find a surface that the cat likes lying on- furry pillows in the cat’s own color seem to be a favorite- and put that where you want the cat to be.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
You can’t stop Tunch, For He is a force of nature that cannot be denied.
eemom
and I love his pointy ears. Also too.
tim
Yeah…cats are really bizarre. In a good way.
tim
What is the male equivalent of a “Cat Lady?”
russell
or drive.
Morbo
Tunch Friedman?
Poopyman
He’s probably perfected moving through the ductwork undetected.
Face it – you’re screwed. On the upside, you could spread the throws and blankets on the kitchen counters so he doesn’t go up there.
Susan S
Cats rule.
R-Jud
@Paul in KY:
Our little cat Quinn will jump onto the handles and use a paw against the jamb to push the door open. The other cat somehow spirits himself into the baby’s room and we find him sleeping with her when we go in to check on her.
Catherine F.
Aw, Tunch is so sweet. I hope he was comfortable, and you’re doing everything you can to make him happy. Probably you should do more for him, just to be on the safe side. I am absolutely sure Tunch would agree with me.
licensed to kill time
I had a cat who trained me to open the door for him. He’d hook his claws through the screen door and pull it back, then let it slam shut. Bang! Bang! over and over until I got up and let his majesty in. And walk on past me with a disdainful look, like “What took you so long? Incompetent two legged slave!”
Gozer
When I look at Tunch I imagine the music from Terminator 2. I bet he only sees in binary.
Citizen Alan
@tim:
I’m not really sure that “Cat Lady” should be considered gender-specific.
freelancer
@tim:
:D
Don in Cda
@Poopyman:
YellowJournalism
@licensed to kill time: My cat used to do that with a regular door. She would cup her paws underneath it and rattle it in an almost human manner. She loved to grab at people’s toes underneath the gap at the bathroom door, too. If you weren’t paying attention, it would scare the crap out of you.
Paul in KY
@R-Jud: Glad I’m not the only one. I bet your little cat looks so cute jumping up there. My CB is a large cat & can reach the handle just fine when standing on hind legs.
slag
Just imagine how stealthy he would be if he were cat-sized.
jeffreyw
A little OT. Mrs J just called from the shelter and told me that “Haven” has been adopted out to a veterinary student. The guy’s wife works in a veterinary clinic. Haven was surrendered to the shelter a while back by a fellow on his way to Iraq.
Persia
@tim: John Cole.
Fleas correct the era
@tim: C-c-c-c-c-c-cat man do?
Fergus Wooster
Sorry John. There’s a good chance he has figured out the knob.
My cat figured it out a couple years ago – for opening doors inward, he would keep jumping up against the door and twisting at the knob with his paws. Eventually he’d supply enough pressure against the door and tweak the knob just enough to get in.
You don’t own him, any more than I own my Bizarro-Tunch. We are their staff.
MAJeff
I just give up. I wish I knew how he was getting into that room. If he has figured out “doorknobs” I am screwed.
An old cat of mine figured out both deadbolts and sliding glass doors.
Gregory
Somewhat on topic, and slightly less annoying than the WalMart gift card ads: Meowmania (via MeFi).
Citizen_X
Wi haz open thred? Gud. 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences have published a letter in Science defending climate science. It starts out, “We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular.”
They sound downright P.O.’d by this point.
Poopyman
@Don in Cda:
I’m not laughing. That’s how my sister’s cat(s) find mice.
Apparently it’s great fun to sneak into the ducts in the middle of the night, sneak up on some mices, and proceed to flail around in the ductwork making a great noise that wakes the household.
Jim, Once
@Poopyman:
One of our kitties did exactly that. We’d hear muted, phantom meows in ceilings and walls, and knew she’d managed to make her way into another duct. The only way to get her out was to set a bowl of tuna at the nearest duct entrance.
cleek
put something flat on the floor, our cats will fight to see who can sleep on it first: blanket, towel, piece of cardboard, some bubble wrap, a pizza box, a dirty shirt.
the only criteria seem to be 1) flat and 2) novel.
licensed to kill time
@YellowJournalism:
Cats are quite good at using those clubby little paws, aren’t they? One of mine used to hook her paws over the top of cabinet doors (floor level) in the kitchen. She knew where all the cat food cans were stacked, and would pull open the door and start toppling cans out onto the floor.
She never figured out how to pull the tabs on the lids, though.
Rosalita
you have to find a pillow/cushion you can properly disfigure with your bulk you know, it’s no fun otherwise…
Fergus Wooster
@cleek:
Any book you have open. What’s most important is that you clearly be using it, either as reference at the computer, or as a cookbook in the kitchen. Make sure the cat sees you’re constantly referring to it and that you require it.
It will become a cat-bed in no-time.
wmsheppa
@John Cole: I was recently out of town for the weekend, and when I got home my cat had opened the closet I keep her dry food in, pulled the bag out, chewed through it, and began eating that instead of the untouched feeder. Why? Because she can. I am now petrified that she will open my apartment door (same style handle) and I’ll come home some day to reports of a cat running wild in my building.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
You could have stopped at “Resistance is Futile”.
Heh heh, you really crack me up. You say you grew up with cats but sometimes I wonder.
I’m chuckling muchly here. Tunch soooo has your number.
geg6
Cole, when are you gonna learn that you don’t own pets, especially cats. But some dogs are just as imperious and stubborn and controlling. One of my John’s dogs, Henry, is one of them. He pretty much runs the household. And beyond. For instance, he insists on driving whenever he’s in the car. There is no denying him. Thankfully, he’s a good driver.
On another topic, I went to a Dem fundraiser last week and there were some pretty big names there raising $ for local races, including Jason Altmire (he gets no cash from me though; someone gave us the tickets). The headliners were Dr. Cyril Wecht and Tommy Chong, both of whom were prosecuted (and one convicted) by notorious Bush US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan. Who is the GOP candidate for the House seat PA-04, Jason Altmire’s seat. Cyril Wecht seriously didn’t know what a bong was. But they were funny and had a sorta comrades in arms vibe. Very funny.
Josie
If he has indeed figured out doorknobs, you can do what I did with my kids – put a sock over the doorknob and a rubber band around the small part to hold it on. The the child’s hand (or cat’s paw) slips off without turning the knob. The only trouble with that is, if you actually have a guest at some point, Tunch will be only to happy to see the sock come off and to join your guest in the forbidden room. I sense a certain air of “win” in his expression.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@tim: An old queen. SASQ
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Persia:
Only if he has maybe 30 more. Lord help us, we have 9 and stare into the figurative “cat lady” abyss every time we bring home fosters.
lurkergirl +2
GO TUNCH!! :-)
tim
@Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion:
I was trying to be respecful and considerate to our host. Thank you for your fearless candor. :D
Bill E Pilgrim
You do realize that he’s thinking exactly the same thing, right?
I go through all the trouble of using the magic cat powers to transmogrify myself right through the plaster, and here he comes through some weird hole in the wall with hinges.
cat48
I just gave up with my kitty Jeff. He always naps in the guest bedroom. I don’t even try to close the door any longer. Love my pets.
Anonymous At Work
John,
As Tunch has apparently figured out the keyboard and spelling, I’d worry about my credit cards and online ordering. There are some great online places to order fresh swordfish steaks…which aren’t cheap…
Butch
Yeah, but…I agreed to take care of a friend’s dog while he and wife attend their daughter’s graduation out of state. He isn’t a bad dog in any sense of mean, but definitely not well socialized or disciplined. (He saw a deer yesterday; my guys stopped chasing at the property line, but I finally caught him nearly a mile from here, and it’s a rural, wooded area, so losing him really would have meant losing him.) Really made me appreciate my four mutts.
licensed to kill time
@Bill E Pilgrim:
An Onion article seems appropriate here: Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs:
Randy P
I’m laughing here reading the descriptions of cats and their powers over puny human doors. But the last time I had a “wonder how he’s getting through there” moment with a cat it turned out to be a break-in. I kept letting my cat into the basement and then finding him outside. When I finally went to investigate, I discovered someone had kicked in one of the casement windows and entered the house that way.
There had been some weird spillage in the house a couple of days before and things out of place, but we hadn’t missed anything and hadn’t realized what we were seeing. They literally got nothing: the bowl of earrings-missing-partners from my wife’s desk, and an entire shelf of broken camera equipment that I had never figured out what to do with.
ET
@tim: Amen.
Of all the places on the living room floor mine doesn’t choose the soft rug but the tiny piece of paper laying on the floor. And curls his tail around so no bit of fur is off that piece of paper. Then he will just sit and stare. Until he sees my hand moving to the back of the sofa (where the kitty yummies are) at which point he speeds up the sofa to perch on the back, ever hopeful.
Obviously Egged
Dear Tunch,
I heard Joe Sestak smells like cookies. Can you confirm?
Thank you.
Origuy
@Paul in KY:
My friend’s male cat Braveheart can get out of her apartment by pulling down on the door handle. Most of the time she lets him.
slippy
@licensed to kill time: When I was a kid we had an enormous gray cat who we took in as a stray. He would announce his desire to enter the house by LEAPING up and clinging to the sill of the window on the rear door of the house. This made a respectable thump that could easily be heard inside. You could then hear him yeowling from out there, and you could see his ears and nose sticking up over the sill of the window.
He was poisoned by some jerk trying to get rid of his squirrel problem, we think. He just abruptly curled up and died at about age 3. My mother was heartbroken.
PaulW
Tunch is a quantum kitteh who uses his indeterminate state to pass through walls.
The Claw
He likes that room because the door is normally closed to keep you out. And the throws and blankets are too scratchy or too hot or get the fur too staticy. That is now Tunch’s room.
bemused
Install a Tunch cam to find out how he does it. You may lucky & catch him in the act before he figures out how to disable the camera.
licensed to kill time
@slippy:
Your ‘cat leaping up’ story reminded me that my screen banger used to climb up on the screen door if I didn’t answer quickly enough and sometimes would get his nails stuck.
It was quite amusing to swing the door back and forth with a cat stuck to it.
I am very sorry about your big gray kitty. People who put out poison should be shot on general principle.
grumpy realist
John, don’t forget the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and how h approximates 1 in the vicinity of any feline.
I had a 30-lb dog that managed to get a jar of marmalade off the kitchen table, unscrew the lid, and eat half of the marmalade. And let’s not talk about the time he got into the cockroach poison and eat more than three times the lethal dose for a dog of his size with absolutely no effect.
bemused
@The Claw:
Oh yeah, cats detest closed doors. I love cats but the scratching & crying at the bedroom door in the middle of the night waking us up out of deep sleep was the pits. Worse is waking up hearing that gakking noise knowing the cat is urping or about to urp up something disgusting. Invariably as I would scramble out of bed in the dark in a futile attempt to catch the cat before anything happened, it was too late & I would step right in the warm, steaming, smelly glop. God, I hated that. Cats never seem to puke on a bare floor either, noooo, it has to be on a rug. Cleaning my feet & a rug at 2am…good times.
Glen Tomkins
Schroedinger’s Cat
It would seem that you have one of those quantum mechanical cats. Whenever he wants to get in that locked room, he just parks his little probability cloud next to the door, and sooner or later the probabilities put him on the other side.
asiangrrlMN
Aw, TUNCHIE! Good to hear from my beloved. He looks so determined in that pic. As to how he’s getting in the room, it’s best not to ask those kinds of questions.
Egypt Steve
I think you can keep Tunch completely immobilized in any room you choose for hours with this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMkZCSTBvV0” rel=”nofollow”
It has certainly worked for me.
If you think Tunch can read as well as write, advise him to turn on the “closed captioning.” Beyond awesome. “What, ranch, what, ranch, what, ranch!”
AhabTRuler
@Egypt Steve: “He ran ran ran ran ran ran ran ranch” has me weeping with laughter.
Randy P
@Glen Tomkins: I vaguely recall that the title character in the great Robert Heinlein’s last book, The Worst Science Fiction Book Ever Written aka The Cat Who Walks Through Walls had such properties.
But I can’t be bothered to ever reread a word of that book, so there’s no way to confirm.
ennui
No doubt. Ours just have to sleep on towels fresh out of the dryer. They also just have to open armoires and sleep on delicate clothing. There may or may not be 5 heated lambswool beds around the house but these are nothing compared with the “what-can-we-fuck-with-now” objets d’art in our home. Armadillo Joe’s wife.
ruemara
My theory of cats involves their ability to open wormholes to be exactly where you don’t want them to be. Case in point, your guest bed.
BTW, if you buy a huge 3 yard amount comfy fuzzy type cloth, like for stuffed animals and such, cats will be drawn to it like a magnet. It seems to give them the super softness they prefer for their asscheeks. Faking a decent shocked & appalled look helps with the mental aspect of fooling them.
Monkeyfister
You’d best check him for thumbs, John.
–mf
Bad Horse's Filly
Oh, please. Doorknobs, amateur.
I got home today to find the a cat (no one is admitting who) had somehow gotten on top of the refrigerator (which is covered with so much stuff, they’d have had to levitate, a la Tom Cruise in order to get up there and not knock anything off), had some how gotten the sealed lid off a cake container and licked the entire top off a sour-cream Angel Food cake.
asiangrrlMN
@Bad Horse’s Filly: Hopefully, that’s not bad for the kitty. It’s hilarious to imagine, though.
The Moar You Know
@bemused: After my last cat, I removed every square foot of carpet in the house and replaced it with wood flooring. I have carpet in one place; directly under my drumset.
My current cat will not throw up anywhere save for on the carpet that lies beneath the drumset. She’ll get up and run when she starts barfing just to barf on the carpet.
I both love and hate cats.
Oh, and John, as far as doorknobs go, you are probably screwed. I’ve been a cat owner on and off since I was a little boy, and I would say that at least 40% of my family’s cats figured out the doorknob, some at a terrifyingly young age.
Bad Horse's Filly
@asiangrrlMN: I’m going to assume (at least in small doses) it’s fine for them. This started about a month ago, open cake, slice cake, surrounded by cats, each wanting a small bite. Hasn’t killed them yet.
Other than tunafish sandwiches, I have never had that kind of reaction from the cats. I should ask the bakery if they are spiking the cakes with catnip.
Resident Firebagger
What I can’t get over is even when Tunch is so obviously comfy and snoozy, you can still see those evil eyes plotting Cole’s demise…
EEH
It’s possible that the door isn’t latching all the way and he’s pushing against the door to open it. My cat does that when I’m not paying attention and don’t make sure that the door is firmly shut with the latch clicking in place.
Violet
When he’s figured out how to get online and buy catnip with your credit card, that’s when you’re truly screwed. Tunch FTW.
Delia
@EEH:
<blockquoteIt’s possible that the door isn’t latching all the way and he’s pushing against the door to open it.
The knob on my back door doesn’t latch, so if I want it to be really closed I have to set the deadbolt. One of my cats will work the edge of the door with her paw till it opens (or until I go crazy if the deadbolt is set) when she wants to go out. There have been many times when I’ve come into the kitchen exclaiming “Who left the back door open?” when it was the cat.
Eric S.
In grade school I taught the family cat to open doors and cabinets. Nearly 30 years on I’m still not convinced my mother has forgiven me.
Anne Laurie
@Bad Horse’s Filly:
But you did check all your human housemates’ breath just in case, right? (say the totally innocent, wrongly defamed cats)
Anne Laurie
@Bad Horse’s Filly:
Or cardamon? I’ve heard of cats going crazy for cardamon…
fourlegsgood
Of COURSE he can open door knobs. Many cats can.
My maine coon Maddie will stand on her hind legs and wrap her big feeties around the door knob on the rare occasions when I close an interior door.
It’s their world, I just live in it.
Yutsano
@Bad Horse’s Filly: Angel food cake is mostly egg whites and flour so should be fine for a kitteh. The sour cream and lemon won’t hurt either, in fact I’ve notice my gray furball goes apeshit for sour cream. My nutso other one, however, won’t even drink milk. Unless I’m eating cereal, then he’ll take a couple of laps out of my bowl.
West of the Cascades
PLEASE make a new “Resistance is Futile” t-shirt with this photo on it!!!
carolatl
We had a cat years ago who figured out how to not only get the kitchen cabinet door open but climb inside the cabinet before the door slammed shut and snuggle down in the pots and pans. I’d come home from work to hear phantom cat meows coming from a cabinet, like he was playing hide-and-seek and was very proud of his clever hiding spot. One of the coolest cats ever.
Delia
When I was a kid we had a cat who would crawl underneath my baby sister’s dresser and up the back side into a comfy pile of baby clothes in the drawer. After a while we would hear phantom meows when he was done with his nap and had decided it was too much trouble to climb out the way he had climbed in.
Don K
@Paul in KY:
We have the handles too, and although our cats have figured out the handles have something to do with opening the doors (they reach up to them when they want to go out), they haven’t yet figured out how to tug on them.
CaseyL
More than a few years ago, one of my kitties was a true-red tabby named Copper. He was needy and neurotic and very bright. And, like the other two, he was an indoor-outdoor kitty.
We hung a bell from the screen door doorknob, so when the kitties wanted to come in they would bat at the bell, make it ring, and a human would magically appear to open the door.
So: we go on vacation, and our neighbors are taking care of the cats while we’re gone. We move the bell to their doorknob…
… and Copper figured out the “go next door to be let into my house” within, like, an hour.
It’s actually amazing how fast they figure out how things work. I’m convinced their lack of opposable thumbs is the only thing that keeps them from destroying us completely.
WereBear
My theory about cats throwing up on rugs is because they need to dig in to stabilize themselves, and smooth floors won’t work.
Imagine a toilet covered in teflon and you with a bad case of food poisoning…
Also, I’ve racked my brain to figure out why they aim dead center for a pile of wires… maybe they think it’s a tuft of grass? Why would they have to urk in a tuft of grass?
My cat, James Bond, would get distressed when Mr. WereBear would find his hairball with his bare foot, so he would fish dirty socks out of the hamper to lay over the offending object.
Worked great, except for the first time, when I heard Mr. WereBear say, “What’s this sock doing augh augh augh!”
Anne Laurie
@WereBear:
Ah, the ol’ ‘covering up yr shite’ routine. I love the cats who greet a less-than-satisfactory dinner with an elaborate ‘I-scratch-dirt-over-this-crap’ routine. When I was a teenager, the cat dishes sat on newspaper, and Lord Puck (who started out as a hyperactive all-black kitten) would sniff the miserable offering, recoil with a look of horror that Laurence Olivier could not have bettered, and proceed to spend at least 10 minutes carefully tearing strips off the newspaper to hide the rejected kibble. He’d make a whole performance-art project out of his displeasure… tear loose a strip, put it over the dish, examine the effect, re-arrange the strip to improve the design, tear off another strip, carefully balance it over the first, use his paw to adjust the angle…
oklahomo
@Bad Horse’s Filly: I have one that will take rolls, snack cakes, freshly baked loaves of bread, anything of that nature, and hurl them to the floor and chew holes in them. He will also attack you if you have fritos, especially the chili-cheese ones.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I try to avoid the pet threads but I’ll venture into this one. Amongst my multiple cats is a white-with-brown-spots male who is a complete dolt about certain things but the cleverest I’ve ever had in terms of cat doors, people doors, getting on the roofs of buildings, and so on. Could be a genetic linkage.
ellie
He looks pissed. Everybody run!
The Truffle
Does Tunch also jump up and stick to screen doors? I always wondered why pooties do that.
Jennie Merkle
I feel for you John but I have a cat that can and will open the refrigerator door to have his own private air-conditioning in the Southern Arizona summer. Washing a bedspread again is nothing like having to purchase all new food and condiments because when you got home the fridge has been open for so long its contents are the same temperature as the house.
Tunch
Why?
Fuck you, that’s why.
Huggies,
Tunch
P.S. Get me some fucking tuna fish.
Gatsby
In honor of Tunch, a little bit of Rossini (Le Duo des Chats). It never fails to crack me up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjtVDG0drG0
Paul in KY
@Bad Horse’s Filly: One of my old cats (long dead) a young, skinny female at the time jumped from the floor to the top of the refrigerator (a standard sized one). Wouldn’t have believed it but I was standing right there when it happened. Only time I ever saw her do it.
Paul in KY
@Don K: CB pulls down on the handle & the pushes the door open when it unlatches. He can do it on the other side, but hasn’t yet figured out that once it is unlatched, he has to pull it open or wedge his nose in there to get it open.