Things that go bump in the night...

It was a dark and stormy night. Our hero listened intently from the warm comfort of his bed as the scraping sound grew closer. And louder. And somewhat more intense.

It had been a long and tedious night, filled with these constant interruptions from the darkness. The rain pelted against the half-open window, but now, even the sound of a storm could not mask the creeping noise of the intruder. Our hero tensed, steeling himself to face whatever lurked beyond the window pane. He longed for nothing more than to sink into slumber, but now, found himself readied in defence.

It was at that moment, with a resounding crash, that the trespasser made their final entry.

SPAGNA* WILL YOU FUCK OFF!

“Meow!”, came the indignant reply as the storm drenched cat stamped her muddy, stilt-like feet over our hero’s doona, making a clear beeline with her head towards his face.

This is the more-or-less nightly battle that our good compatriot Fandango Jones faces, at the will (it's a very tough will) of the little cat Spagna. Such a sweet looking fluff ball, but downright bloody stubborn with the slightest hint of evil. If were to dare to call Spagna a particular kind of food, she'd probably be some kind of baked, yet inedible cactus. Or perhaps a rich plum pudding filled with tacks. Our other cat, Guinness, well, he's more akin to a cooked noodle. That's not to say he can't be annoying, but at least he's generally not annoying with intent.

Spagna has a long and rich history of giving people the shits, often with the help of this particular window. When myself and Vomit Girl resided in said room, you would find the window clad with a set of blinds (venetian and made of plastic) and with a computer located directly below it. On top of this computer, invariably, there would be stacks of crap everywhere. Paperwork, bills, printouts, the printer itself, and other random bits and pieces. Despite all of this, the fucking cat would still manage to shove herself through the blinds, onto the stacks, where she would send piles of absolutely fucking everything up into the air, and then eventually scattered all over the room as she tried to jump off it. If we left the window open at night, she would do this without fail, four or more times. If you were really lucky, she'd drag a freshly decapitated rat through the blinds with her.

Once, and I'm not entirely sure of the order of this story, but I suspect Kipper can fill in the details, a pigeon ended up in the room. I'm not really sure how it ended up in there, but I suspect Spagna had something to do with it, being the chaos merchant she is. Unfortunately, the pigeon gained entry at some time around 2am, while Kipper was residing in said room. What occurred next, so far as I could ascertain, being on the other side of the wall, was a three ring circus. The bird flew around the room, trying to find an out, the cats ran around the room at full tilt, trying to catch the bird while trying to nobble each other, and Kath jumped from one piece of furniture to another (it's not a huge room) trying to catch all three, all the while yelling her thoughts on the matter. Apparently she managed to catch the bird at one point, only to take it into the hallway and drop it. The chase then reconvened in a similar manner throughout the entire house.

I interrogated Kipper about the happenings the next day, only to receive the response; Oh... did you hear all that?

The incredibly painful thing about this (apart from the irreparably bent out of shape blinds), is that she appears to do all of this for absolutely no purpose at all, other than to have an angry, semi-nude human yell at her whilst throwing broken figurines or other cat-damaged trinkets in her general direction at a very fast pace.

Fandango Jones has since suggested that he may attempt to place some fly-screening up to prevent such unwanted entries for the remainder of summer, and while I generally support such entrepreneurship, I suspect the little cow of a cat will find some kind of cat sized hacksaw and just carve herself an entryway through the new barrier. Plus, noodle-cat will probably not notice it's there until he bounces off it, head first.

But her general misbehaviours don't really end at this particular bedroom. She also does the same thing now to our room should the windows be open for more than five minutes. If you dare to use the kitchen table for any length of time, you're likely to get a face full of Spagna arse. I'd think it's general attention gathering, but if you go to pat her, she immediately runs away, kicking anything you have on the table off the table in the process. And she's also a fucking thief. Bitch ate seven hundred fucking grams of premium mince the last time I made Spag Bol. You wouldn't think it's that unusual, given the chance, except she's the size of a slightly overgrown fucking hamster. I can't even begin to imagine where she fit it all.

Given my current obsession with Human Tetris**, I'm not really capable of coming up with a sensible solution to this cat-shaped problem that doesn't involve her jumping through various silhouettes cut into large blocks of foam. Though, interestingly, as I listen to The Clash's Spanish Bombs*** all I can picture is the damned cat wearing a little black cap, carting about a rather large firearm with an anarchist flag slowly flapping in the breeze behind her. It's strangely fitting.

Which leaves me with the old standby solution. Traps. Not sharp, pointy traps, but traps designed to prevent her from trouble-making, and to humiliate her in the process. Ideally, something that would transport her to the lounge room directly from her mischief making in some kind of makeshift cage, so while we sit and watch TV or play games, we can all point and laugh at her. And dress her as a large wedding cake.

Anyway, enough of all this cat-talk. I'm off to drink beer at the office Christmas party. All this typing of cats has made me thirsty, and frankly, if I'm going to go home and start building elaborate Spagna traps, I think I should be pretty pissed first.

* Pronounced something like: Spun-Ya, or alternatively, You Fucking Bitch.

** More Human Tetris can be found here, here, here and here. And other places too, no doubt.

*** Off the bloody brilliant London Calling album. For more background on the lyrical contents of Spanish Bombs if/when you are familiar with it, I suggest reading George Orwells Homage to Catalonia(****).

**** In joke(*****) : Hot buttered toast!!

***** In joke for those who didn't get the previous one: That's a hot dog!