@TomG, @Crease
Most of the cats I’ve had were smart but not THAT smart like Aston (the Dennis the Menace of cats), and while I low key would love if Troy was of similar intelligence, i also know that at not quite 43 years old, I am too old for that.
I was in my early twenties when I adopted Aston. My first clue that he was going to be a handful was the child safety latches. He loved to sleep in my soup pot. I did not care for this. I bought child safety latches for the cabinets and figured if it’ll keep toddlers out, surely it’ll keep a cat out. Boy was I wrong. He would get his arm in there pull it down, shove his shoulder in and just pop it open.
My second clue was after an all-nighter move to a new apartment. He just disappeared. I looked everywhere. Then, his brother Diablo disappeared. Last, Cooper poofed. The apartment was nothing but sealed boxes that we had just brought over and furniture. I found him 2 hours later after I had given up and decided to take a nap after being awake for 36 hours moving and frantically searching for those darned cats. I heard a meow. They were under the platform waterbed. They had accessed the very middle underside through a drawer they had pulled out. Two days later, I found Aston pulling the drawer open again.
About a year after that I had a 200 dollar water bill. I thought we had a leak and notified the landlord… Maintenance couldn’t find anything. But I got another high bill the next month. One day, I’m home alone from work and I hear the toilet flush. I went downstairs, bat in hand because I feared an intruder of some sort, to see Aston watching the water spin. I quietly watched as he flushed it again. To this day we keep the bathroom doors shut, even though he passed in 2023.
Then when I bought this house, we went away for an evening. I’ve left them for the weekend for years at this point with no problems. We were gone 39 hours. I came home to bloody paw prints everywhere, streaks down walls, and a smell. I feared the worst, or so I thought. I turned the corner to the kitchen and there it was: the freezer door on the fridge wide the f open, chicken juice and melted ice cream running down the front and pooling on the floor. And 3 cats gnawing at a vacuum sealed package of pork steaks they had managed to chew through. I found orange fur in the rubber sealer thing on the door. But I didn’t need that confirmation. I already knew who it was.
So, again, while the thought seems nice that Troy is smart. I really REALLY hope he’s not.
Aston when he was around 10
Aston (2005-2023), Diablo (2005-2023), and Cooper (2006-2023).