"Pet Tails": Sylvester's toy

They say that cats are finicky. Picky. Unusal in their tastes and preferences. Both for things they like and dislike. This applies toward food and toys and even people they meet. Some might say that cats have a sense of what people are good and which are evil. Gosh darn it, I wish they would have warned me about a few people from my past! (My cats, that is).

My cats are certainly unusual when it comes to toys. Granted, they are a bit older right now and aren't quite kittens anymore. Porkey is about 7-1/2 years old, Tabby is about 8-1/2 years old, Athena is about 8 years old, Whiskers is about 4-1/2 or 5 years old, and Sylvester is about 4 years old. Not young spring chickens, but they aren't old fogies either. They have their moments of activity and wildness. Trust me, they have a LOT of those moments. Do they have toys? Sure do! Countless catnip toys, jingle balls, and whatever else are all scattered about the apartment. I know they have a lot of them, but it'd take a whole day to try to find everything.

But they don't always go for them. Some of the toys they hardly touch, others they don't ever touch, and some they just really go crazy for. But that's only like one that I can think of that they go really gaa-gaa for. Like other cat owners, I have spent money on various toys and other accessories in hopes that they'd go crazy for something. And a lot of the time, 9 times out of 10, they don't.

But in the past month or so, Sylvester has found a toy for himself. It wasn't anything I bought for the cats. But it was something he found to play with that was around the apartment. What is it?

The stopper for the bathtub. Yes, that little rubber stopper thing. I know because I have seen him playing with it. In fact, I first began to suspect things when I began to find the stopper laying on the bathroom floor outside of the tub. How did it get there? It took a few days of finding it elsewhere to determine what was going on. Then, one day I found the stopper in the living room. To understand the crazy-ness of this you'd have to know the layout of my apartment. The bathroom door opens into the bedroom. Right immediately around the door to your left is the door from the bedroom out into the living room/kitchen area. So what would have to have happened, is this: he got the stopper out of the tub, across the bathroom (which ain't big), around the corner to the right into the bedroom, around the bedroom and bathroom door on the left, and then out into the living room. How he managed to do that is like performing on some sort of obstacle course. Left, right, left, right, left again, right again....up down up down. You get the idea.

But a tub stopper??? What's so alluring about that? Its a hunk of rubber shaped almost in a disk that has one purpose only: to put in the drain in the tub so it can be filled up with water. There's nothing to it! But.... Sylvester has taken a liking to it and will now play with it. So I have to be careful to keep it in the bathroom and not lose it because its the only bathroom tub stopper that I have.

I have made sure to put out a notice to Santa Claus that he might like one as a gift this holiday season. If not from Santa, then perhaps one of Santa's assistants or elves will give one to Santa to give to him.

Never in my life have my cats played with something around the apartment that is so unusual and strange.

But hey, whatever keeps him occupied and from attacking my plants, right?