Survival of the Fittest: Video Edition

I am artificially keeping Kitten alive.  No, this does not mean that I have Kitten hooked up to some sort of cat life-support system with a morphine drip and feeding tube (though I have given Kitten morphine before).  What I mean is, that there is no chance, not even a sliver of a possibility, that Kitten could live in the wild (urban or otherwise).

I know I have written on similar topics before. Select examples include: Kitten has an Intellectual Disability,  Kitten Almost Died, RIP Cheap Entertainment Unit Door, and 5 Reasons Kitten would not Survive the First Week of a Zombie Apocalypse.

But I still feel like without some concrete evidence, it is difficult for people who do not personally know Kitten to fully grasp how dumb he is.

To help you better understand the level of Kitten’s inability to function as a living being, I have compiled this brief and very incomplete video collection of Kitten’s shortcomings.

Kitten loves to chase things, however, he has little concept of how to come to a proper stop and also forgets very quickly why he was running in the first place.

This is how Kitten eats.  It involves a lot of weird jerky head movements and inability to actually get any food in his mouth.

Kitten will not let me brush him and since the following is his idea of bathing, he ends up covered in mats, necessitating stupid haircuts.  Please note that this is actually the full extent of Kitten’s concept of what constitutes appropriate personal-hygiene measures.

Kitten does not understand object permanence (or in this case, world permanence).  To be fair, neither do babies.  But, even minimally sentient beings often understand that they can escape from underneath blankets.  Kitten does not.  If you put a blanket over Kitten, he will stay they until you take it off.  He accepts that warm darkness has become his life, and at a certain point will begin to welcome it.  That point is at 1:29 in this video, where Kitten begins to purr in his dark sanctuary.   

In the same vein, Kitten simply does not get what is happening when you put something as small as a washcloth over his face.  It is basically the end of the world.

Kitten has a love-hate relationship with cat toys.  He loves to chase them, but has an irrational fear of being chased/attacked/murdered by them.  He doesn’t understand the concept of “play.”

Bags. Kitten loves bags. I know I have said this many, many, many, times (and once more).  But Kitten’s favourite home has always been and forever will be, a crusty paper bag.

It is basically a miracle that he remembers to breath.

♪♪ Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes ♪♪

I just realized that it has been about a year since Ex-Boyfriend and I became citizens of Splitsville.  [If my lame joke escapes you, what I am trying to say, is that it has been about a year since we ended our relationship, called it quits, broke-up, etc.] 

This past year, a lot has changed in my life and I can happily say, that most of the change has been overwhelming good.  What has not changed, is Kitten.

He is my rock, my deranged, violent rock.

To his credit, he has dealt with a lot of changes as well.  After the break-up, I made a few lifestyle changes; the main one being that instead of sitting at home taking pictures of and blogging about my cat, I went out.  I made a big effort to reconnect with old friends and to forge new friendships as well.  This meant a lot of long days alone for Kitten.

Then came even bigger changes.  I met a… person? Man-friend? Male-of-Interest? Let’s call him “Furby”. 

This meant someone new in the apartment.  At first I thought Kitten would be unimpressed, especially because the first time Furby met Kitten, he kicked him. NOT HARD, and to be fair, it was because Kitten had started to do his weird humping thing that Elena has already described in such glorious detail for you. 

On top of that, Furby is allergic to cats, meaning that sometimes Kitten would have to wait in the washroom until Furby was gone.  Despite this, Kitten really liked Furby.  Well, he liked Furby as much as Kitten is capable of liking anything, which means he sniffed his shoes and stared at him in a really uncomfortable manner. 

Furby, however, never grew to like Kitten… or so he said.  But one time I caught Furby on his hands and knees trying to role a ball on a string under the bed for Kitten.  Kitten was obviously terrified by this gesture, as he naturally assumed the 1.5 inch ball was coming to murder him.

One time, I was in the kitchen and Furby was in the washroom.  I heard the shower go on for several seconds and then shut-off.  By this point in our more-than-friendship, I was well aware of Furby’s penchant for, how can I put this?  Shit disturbing.  So I immediately yelled, “did you just run the shower when Kitten was in the bathtub?!”

“No,” came the response from the washroom.

But I didn’t trust Furby, so I went looking for Kitten.  And I found him.  Sitting under the table. Dripping wet.

I frantically yelled at Furby, while rushing to grab a towel and blow-dryer, “Don’t ever get them wet!!!” 

(Source)

Okay, so not quite like that. But STILL bad.

Furby's response: "But he was just sitting in there. He wanted it." 

Luckily, Kitten wasn’t that wet and together we were able to dry him.

Aside from being troublemakers out to make my life more difficult, Furby and Kitten have one other glaring trait in common: FUR.

Now I’m not saying that Furby is Yeti, but…

(Source)

The amount of sweeping needing to be done in my apartment essentially doubled.  Sometimes, I would find hybrid hairballs that had taken on a life of their own.  Yes, it was scary.

So, all of this is to say, that though Kitten clearly wants me dead (made obvious by way of his murderous actions – I’ll get to this in more detail later), he has been doing quite well with the changes that I have been subjecting him to.

Or, as well as Kitten can do.