Our BAD BAD cat! :|

If you are a regular reader of our blog, you know that our cat, Yoshi, is one of our biggest challenges. He is a cat with MAJOR attitude who is determined to rule the roost. We fight him tooth and nail for the crown day and night!

Honestly, Yoshi has been laying pretty low the last few weeks. I considered bragging on him, but I thought better of it. What I now know is that Yoshi was cutting back on his little daily antics because he was planning something BIG.

I was sleeping pretty good on Sunday morning around 6:30. But I was dreaming about something more like what Ray or my grandfather would dream about - construction. As this piece of equipment was lifting up a walkway (don't ask), there was a "click, click, click, click..." noise. I woke up suddenly, still hearing "click, click, click, click...". Knowing exactly what it was, I jumped out of bed and ran in the kitchen! On the way down the hall, I started smelling gas! Because the kitchen was still a little dark (the sun wasn't all the way up), I was able to see the blue sparking very well. Yep, the two left burners of our gas stove were sparking (trying to light)! I turned the knobs, but they were both in the off position! I looked down and saw Yoshi watching my every move! That SOB had jumped on the counter in search of a snack and must have lost his footing! I ran back to the bedroom to wake Ray. I knew it better be a REAL emergency if I use the word "emergency" when waking Ray up. And because the house wasn't on fire and because it wasn't flooding, I decided to alter my wording. I said, "Ray, um...will you please wake up? I have a semi-emergency." (Now, he laughs at my word choice! I do too! But in all seriousness, as I said earlier, I've learned my lesson about labeling something as an emergency without carefully considering whether or not Ray will think of it as one. There better be blood gushing or something that will take a lot of money to fix like a leaking roof in a torrential downpour! Also, if you have to wake Ray up when he is not expecting to be awakened, it is smart to use what I call the "innocent school girl approach". Talk slow and soft (I've come to master this!!!). If you yell (even though a normal person would warrant it), there is a 99.9% chance you will get yelled back at! ;) Okay, so Ray isn't THAT bad. In his defense, he's gotten much better over the years.

Okay, back to my story. Ray gets up, goes into the kitchen, and ends up turning the right knobs to make the sparking stop. Now, why that worked, I have NO idea. Maybe I was too panicked to notice that the right burners were also sparking. Just like me, Ray KNEW it was Yoshi who did it! He was in big time trouble! We even had a discussion about whether or not we should keep Yoshi. We love him DEARLY, but he could've killed us! For several hours, all of the animals were in their kennels on the enclosed porch. And, we had to air out the house the entire day. Instead of getting rid of Yoshi, we decided to punish him by doing a few things. First, he didn't get breakfast (since his never ending search for food caused this incident). Let me preface his second form of punishment. As you may or may not remember, Mollie HATES cats. We've worked so hard to keep Mollie and Yoshi separate. Well, to hell with that! No, we didn't let Mollie loose on Yoshi. We aren't that cruel! BUT Mollie and Yoshi haven't really even seen each other! They just hear each other's cries, barks, meows, etc. Yoshi's punishment was that his kennel was put face to face with Mollie's for hours. It worked out pretty well. I think Yoshi figured out we meant business, and we probably made their future meeting easier on us. :)

Later that morning, I said, "Did you smell that gas smell when you got into the hallway?!" Ray said, "No..I don't think so". I said, "Really?! I did!" He said, "How do you know what it smells like?" I was about to start telling my story and then realized how funny it was! I started laughing! He said, "Oh no...WHAT?" I said, "It is so bizarre you probably won't believe me". He said, "Try me". I said, "Well, when I was a kid, the gas company used to send out a postcard with a scratch and sniff postcard - with a gas smell on it - about twice a year". Very interested, he said, "Ye-ah?" I said, "My dad always told me he wanted me to be familiar with that smell so I could identify it. So, he would scratch it over and over and make me smell it, even if I said I didn't want to smell it anymore. I think he just did it in hopes he could watch me get high". Ray burst out laughing (because you have to admit that it IS kinda funny), but he followed it up with "He is such an ass". That was the exact response I was hoping for - turning something bad into something funny but also acknowledging it was horrible.

In conclusion: Yoshi is a trouble maker, but he is our child. My dad is an ass, but maybe our lives were saved because of his teaching method. In some f'ed up way, we're thankful for both Yoshi and my dad. They are both bad eggs - SO ROTTEN - SO EASY TO HATE, but we have a hard time denying our love for them. :)

~"Tish"