Quote:
Originally Posted by poohbear_nc
Years ago, I lived in a tiny efficiency apt. with the world's smallest bathroom: shower stall, toilet, sink, tiny window -- all in a row on the wall. I always kept the toilet seat down b/c Buster cat loved to run in at top speed and jump from floor to toilet seat to sink to window ledge! TA DA!
One morning I was standing at the sink brushing my teeth and heard a loud splash .... looking down I saw the world's angriest, wettest cat hauling himself out of the toilet bowl. Knowing that I dare not laugh in front of him (It would be a death sentence!), I ran into the other room with my hand clamped over my mouth, drooling toothpaste out of my nose. Buster cat obviously saw through my petty attempt at subterfuge, and promptly jumped into the middle of the bed and dried himself on my sheets. Then he peed on them.
We never spoke of this incident again ....
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When we adopted Clancy, our first Maine Coon, he was 5 years old, and a very quiet, gentlemanly cat. When I "met" him at his foster-home, he was pretty traumatized and not at all friendly--it was a big, huge, noisy house, with several children, at least one of whom was special needs. Clancy didn't seem very happy, but...nonetheless, I took him. He screamed--and I mean, SCREAMED, not merely meowed, all the way home, 60+ miles. (Yes, folks, believe it or not, it's more than 60 miles from one end of the metro sprawl that is Phoenix to the other...)
Anyway...despite thinking that it might take him DAYS or even WEEKS to emerge from the "safe zone" that was his bathroom, replete with chow, water, box, etc., he came out and was on the sofa with us within hours, and was a completely new cat. In a house without screaming children and many other very dominant cats, he was a happy, happy fellow.
Now, Clancy came from a fairly well-known line of MC's, that have very (very) long, fringy tails. He was a tabby, much like Mr. Zep, with lovely white markings and stunning jade eyes.
Anyway...a few days after he arrived, I heard a noise that I couldn't place. I wandered around the house, and kept listening...sounded like muttering. I kept looking, and the closer I got, the more it sounded like HUMMING. I was really confused by this, as neither Mr. Hitch nor I are hummers or singers. When I finally got to the guest/hall bath, what to my wondering eyes should appear?
But a big fuzzy ass, with a giantly long plum-y tail, stuck up in the air, with the front half of the cat entirely buried in the toilet. Emerging from said bowl was, yes, HUMMING of a kind. Clancy hummed. Not only that, he washed his paws. Every time he ate, he washed his paws. Every time he used the box, he washed his paws. And when he did--he hummed, a sort of off-key, half-purr, half-mutter, rumbly, well...HUM.
Mr. Clancy isn't with us any longer, (stomach cancer 2 years after we got him), but even though Mr. Zep is also a water-hound, we miss his humming. And the ubiquitous MESS that was the toilet, every time he ate, dumped, peed...but he would not be denied his washing. If you closed the toilet top, a little while later you'd hear a big BANG, and sure enough, he'd be scrunched under the lid, ass sticking out, front end in the bowl, with a less-harmonious
HUMMMMM emerging.
(FWIW: his cousin, who is owned by Mr. Hitch's cousin--completely coincidentally, mind you--has the same paw-washing trait, although he doesn't sing/hum.)
I've attached a not-very-good photo of our humming bather. He would not have taken out a dipping on your bedspread, Pooh!
Hitch