I think my relationship with my cat is toxic.  She obviously hates me.

That said, Myrtle does seem to treat me like an equal.  Most people would probably consider this an accomplishment.  Sadly, with Myrtle, I think she considers me to have nine lives, and she’s killing me one at a time.

Fortunately, it’s figurative.

For now. 

We just had a conversation that neither of us liked about inappropriate peeing.  She had peed on the runner I finally caved and bought the other day.

For the fourth time in a week.

Luckily, I only spent $40 on it…

The thing that really hurt was that I had just witnessed her peeing in the cat box 15 minutes earlier and rewarded her with some butt scratches and dried salmon.  Not sure where this need to pee again came from or why it had to be on the runner.

Again.

Some background to begin…I have this weird space in my bathroom between the shower/tub and the toilet.  There’s a wall and everything, not sure what the hell the design thought process here was, but it fit a cat box perfectly.

So I got a cat.

Everything was fine for a month or so.  She seemed to adjust immediately to her cat box and was also very enthusiastic of my own bathroom efforts.

Flushing the toilet was an amazing adventure for her.  So interesting to her, she was all twitchy and – of course – curious.

Anyway, about six weeks in, she starts peeing in the shower.  It takes me about a week to realize it’s happening, I just thought her cat litter smelled.  So, I change it, thinking that will eliminate the poor behavior.

No.

Once I realized it’s happening, I started wondering why.  I blamed it on someone else, maybe a guest peed in the shower.  Men can be such stupid animals, after all, maybe she picked up the habit there.

Regardless, it seemed she was not to be dissuaded, so I moved the litter box to the utility room a couple of weeks ago and started keeping the bathroom door closed.  That went fine for the first week.

Here, have a breakdown of the last week of her pee-pee no-nos:

Day 1:  Pees outside the cat box.  Six inches outside of it.

Day 2:  Poops outside of the cat box.  Maybe this was just bad aim?

Day 3:  New runner arrives, she pees on it.

Day 4:  Nothing odd happens.  Yay!

Day 5:  Pees on the runner again.

Day 6:  I’m doing laundry and find Day 4’s “entry” into this Urine Saga.  Really, in the laundry basket?  Also, I had woken up to pee in the early morning and forgot to close the bathroom door.  Shower pee!

Day 7:  Guess who never gets tired of peeing on the runner?

I’m tired of this competition, perhaps she has too much water in her diet?

And it’s not just this type of acting out.  She’s not an affectionate cat.  Quite the opposite, actually.  Look at this innocent toilet paper.

She has a conflicted relationship with boxes.  Total love/hate dynamic.

 In case it wasn’t totally obvious in the above photo…bags ok, though.

So, obviously, she can be a typical, cute type cat.  As a matter of fact, the other day Mistress Myrtle even licked me!  From a cat that has purred an average of once per month, that was a big deal.  Sometimes, she even climbs on my lap for a minute.  Until I make the mistake of petting her while she is there.

I think she’s really poorly adjusted.  I am her third owner.  She’s just over two years old.  I feel bad for her, but why can’t I have a normal cat?  The guys I tend to date end up needing repair, which is hard enough when we both speak English.  Or just have the ability to use words.  With a cat, who the hell knows what the fuck is going through their minds?

How am I supposed to interpret this action?

Aargh.  Like I said, she appears to figuratively be trying to kill me.  This is a daily occurrence.  Sometimes it is fabric…usually, it’s my skin.

What to do?  I love my Myrtle.  But do I have to settle for a cat that abuses me?  My dinner companion last night told me that I don’t need to settle for a defective cat.  But I feel like I can fix her if I’m just patient.  But I got an older cat so I wouldn’t have to deal with the scratching, biting and general bad kitty social behavior.  Then again, I had a glimmer of worry when I adopted her because I was told that she was described as “Queen of the Castle” when I got her …no other pets or kids.

But I assumed at least one human was ok.

Maybe I was wrong.

Maybe I should get her another cat to play with…this kind of sounds like Single Kitten Syndrome, where they don’t have another cat to teach them proper socialization.  I will admit that her scratches and bites have gotten gentler over time.  I always try to overreact when she hurts me so that she associates the sound of pain with her actions.

But I also admit that some days I also look at the shelf with the canned cat food on it – I buy the small cans so she has a fresh meal out of each can – and think “You’ve got X many days left to turn it around, Myrtle…when the cat food runs out, your number may be up.”

Then I feel like a bad person.

Can you break up with a cat?  Is it any more effective than trying to bargain or negotiate with one?

Hey look, an entry with fewer than 1000 words!