Soiled Sheets of Discontent 

There are two women in my life, and one of them is pooping in my bed. Ok, you can stop covering your mouth with your palm and whispering about the Pirate Queen. It’s not her. I’ve got the Pirate Queen bathroom trained.

“No, seriously baby, I cleaned the bathroom.  I swear. There’s no need to go to Starbucks…”

She is still using some woman witchery and floating 3 inches over the seat though. Nonetheless, for the record, she is not pooping in my bead.

“Then who is the poo, Christopher Robby?”

My poo-culprit is another Winnie: Persephone, my cat. I don’t get it. We’ve been together over a year and a half. This trick is recent. She does the doo only when I spend the night at the Pirate Queen’s.

Now if she’d done this from the beginning, I’d understand, but this isn’t the first weekend I’ve spent at the Pirate Queens. What’s changed?  Why is there a new tension between Persephone and I? Are we just like other couples that have fallen into complacency, and don’t know how to communicate without crapping where they sleep?

I don’t know what started it, but I am familiar enough with poo-munication. With dogs it means, “Dude, could you put this somewhere?” With people, it means you pay an extra $50, with cats it’s “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore.”

I’ve tried accommodating her. I made sure her food was full. I made sure her water was full. I made sure her litter box was empty.

“Yes dear. Whatever you want.”

Persephone has an eating disorder that makes things challenging through. Whenever she eats, she eats everything at once. If I’m leaving for the weekend, and lay out enough food to last until Monday, her bowl is empty before the back door is locked and my butt’s belted in my car.

At first I thought this was the source of the problem: she’d eat all her food, and blame me because there wasn’t more. See? Just like any other relationship. In order to combat this, I bought her an automatic feeder that would disperse food in digestible increments.

I went away this weekend thinking, “Mission Accomplished!” I came home to a quilt planted poo-garden. Now I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore. I grabbed my fuzzy miss and rubbed her nose in the poo with repeated “NO!”s.

Ok, so I should pause here. If you haven’t guessed, I’m a dog guy. That’s what you do with puppy-doo. I suck when it comes to women and cats. I swatted the Pirate Queen with a rolled up newspaper once and she pulled out a whip.

“Now that’s a swat.”

Persephone didn’t take to my dog training any better.  When I went to bed, there was a fresh pile of “communication” waiting for me. I gave her a communicatory facial with a “No!” and placed her in her box. Then I locked her in the bathroom.

Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t confused about the message my cat was communicating. This isn’t my first relationship.  I understand bitter spite poo. I can leave a few piles of my own.

I chose not to do that--this time. 

Still, I can’t let a mad cat think that she’s the queen of my house. I’ve seen where that leads. This time it’s gonna be different.

On the other hand I’m considering a trip to the Humane Society in the morning. There’s only room for one shitty disposition in my house, and both MyEx and the Pirate Queen can agree that I have it.

But isn’t that a bit extreme? Ending a relationship because I don’t agree with Persephone’s attitude? After this much time, it’s like divorcing after our first fight. We’re a civil culture. We don’t do that—OK, maybe we do, but I won’t. I’m a drag my feet in the muck kind of guy. I don’t quit.

So what do I do? Cuz the princess and the Poo are not the answer either.

I could go to an expert and have them help us. That would be intelligent. Instead, I go to the Internet. This is like going to your single best friend for marriage advice.  The first thing I see is a Yahoo page saying, “My cat poos in my bed. Should I put her to sleep?”

I gasp.

Persephone and I are going through a rough spot, but I would never consider that. Most of what I find online is like gaggling hen advice, suggesting everything from “I’m a bad mate” to “my cat is imbalanced.” Neither of these accusations are true, and neither one answers the question that I really have: how do I stop this?

Finally I find a site suggesting something I hadn’t considered.  I read the words, and a tear rolled down my cheek, like an Indian in a slittered casino. “Your cat poos in your bed because she loves you.”

Awww…

What do I do now? I mean I can go toe to toe with hissing anger, but love? How do I fight that?

The site offers the theory that my cat is pooing where she smells me most (yup, the bed. That makes sense…) She’s marking her “Rob” territory because she’s afraid of losing me.

“Holy needy cat-shit Batman!”

What is our dynamic duo to do?  Tune in next week…

I can’t wait that long. This theory has spun our relationship into a new spiral. I’m not angry anymore. I’m sad. I’ve pushed away someone’s love because I misread their needs. In what kind of world does this make sense? What kind of ass did that make me?

Yup, the poopy-bed kind.

I wondered if we looked at all our relationships in terms of actions of love instead of reactions in anger what would our approach be?  Would our failure rate be as high as it is today? I dunno. I’m only reading the poo leaves.

I’m trying a new approach. This morning I walked into the room where she spent the night. I sat on the floor, held out my hand and waited. When she was ready, she came to me. When she did, I pet her.

“You know, kitty, we both have to get along here.”

“Mew.”

Yeah, I know. I’m partly to blame, but I’m trying. This is new to me.”

“Mew-mew.”

“No, I’m not excusing myself. I’m not apologizing either—but I’m not asking for an apology. You’re you, I’m me, and we need to find a place that works for both of us. That’s not always going to be easy, but we’ll try, OK?” I rubbed between her ears of encouragement.

“Mew.”

I stood up, and let her think. I’m not confused. This isn’t some ABC movie special. Credits won’t roll. We won’t fall into each other’s furry arms and live happily ever after. I only want to find a way for us to live together. I want to make one relationship work, because if I can get along with a cat, I can get along with anybody.

And that’s why I’m waiting for the Pirate Queen.  She’s leaving to visit her family in a few weeks. She’ll be gone for a little over a week. I’m gonna miss her. So while she’s gone, I’m going to stop by her apartment, crawl up on her bed and leave her a pile of my love.

Won’t she be surprised when she gets home to see how much I love her?