Puff Tail

Last night we got home pretty late and a little stressed. Gorgeous saw an opportunity to give Fat Boy a puff tail. Since its always great fun, she took it.

For those of you who don’t know, cats have unique feature. Whenever they get suddenly freaked out the hair on their tail stands straight out so that it appears to be about four times the normal diameter and looks like a bottle brush. The interesting thing about it is that the tail puffs up in an instant but takes some time to come back down. Just like gas prices.

The puff tail can give you a good read on who knocked over the picture in the other room. This weekend Low Rider came tearing into the bed room up onto the bed. He landed squarely on a couple sheets of paper that Gorgeous just set down on her way through the room. Apparently Low Rider wasn’t expecting that texture or the slide across the comforter just then and viola, puff tail.

It always gives me a sense of accomplishment when I am directly responsible for the puff tail.

Like when Low Rider was eating breakfast a week or so ago and my toast popped up in the toaster. Puff tail.

Or a month or so back Low Rider was in the kitchen sink licking some butter off a knife. When I saw him there about four things happened nearly simultaneously.

1. I yelled very loudly, something I am very good at.


2. A plate shifted in the sink, adding to the noise.


3. Low Rider immediately displaced himself vertically upward approximately 13”.


4. And oh yes, puff tail.

Low Rider knew he was busted because the boys are absolutely not allowed up on the counters. Or the tables. Or the dressers. Fat Boy pretty much respects those boundaries because he’s not smart enough to know when I’ve booby-trapped them with masking tape. Low Rider can usually tell when its safe, and when he’s going to end up skulking around the house trying to shake that icky tape off a paw with me chasing him feeling guilty but laughing too hard to actually catch him and get the tape off.

Fat Boy’s not that smart so he generally stays down. Its safer that way.

I try to sneak up on them to scare them from time to time, hoping for a puff tail. I’m not as good at it as Gorgeous. She is sneakier, I guess. My victories are usually unintentional, which makes them all the funnier.

That’s how she got Fat Boy last night. The two boys were stalking each other after we got home. It is easier to get them when they are distracted. Of course Fat Boy isn’t very hard to get destracted because he's not so smart. Actually I’m being nice, he’s quite stupid.

He has repeatedly tried to jump up from the back of the couch only to misjudge the jump, smack against the back of the couch, and then slide down because he’s got no front claws. It looks like Wile E. Coyote to me every time he does it.

He is also prone to try to jump to the front of the couch from under the glass coffee table. The sound of a cat head hitting the underside of a plate glass table at full force is one you don’t forget. I'm giggling just thinking about it. His eyes are more crossed than usual after trying that.

My final proof on Fat Boy’s stupidity (I mean other than the fact that Low Rider was out smarting him at eight weeks. We new he was in trouble then since he was seven.) is that he can fall from the couch and land flat on his back, again repeatedly. I didn’t know cats could do this. I think he is breaking a law of physics. Otherwise how would this perpetual motion machine work?

He’s one of kind all right. That’s why we keep him around. Besides a good puff tail is guaranteed to please!