What do they do all day? Full-time workers/pet owners the world over, I am sure, have asked this question for centuries, while they’re observing the bizarre nature of their fuzzy friends from the sidelines.
It’s hard for me to imagine what fills the day for my two beloved indoor cats. I mean, there’s usually a little piece of evidence that they get up to no good once they hear “bye boys, have a good day” (not kidding, I say that to them every day). Once in a while, I find chewed leaves on the house plants that are on top of the china cabinet. I’ve never seen the cats up there, but someone had to have chewed them, and I don’t think Greg has the palette for spiky aloe.
I’ve also seen little paw prints on the bathroom mirror, just above my eye level. Must’ve been a good jump. What he was doing on the bathroom counter is anyone’s guess, and what he was jumping at in the mirror, I would’ve liked to have seen.
But what is for certain is that they definitely know to behave differently when their people are home. My older cat knows he isn’t allowed on tabletops, and usually stays down, but, there have been a couple of times when I’ve caught him on the table just after Greg and I have returned home after a weekend away. Yeah, he’d probably gotten pretty comfortable with no one there to yell at him as he gets to the high vantage point (good to keep an eye on the menacing young cat).
They know they should behave when we’re around, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re good, just that they know when they’re being bad. For example, the little one will hang out on a dining room chair and he’ll stick a paw up from below, trying to grab anything he can reach off the table, without actually going up on it – he knows how to bend the rules, and be cute doing it.
They definitely don’t have their priorities in order either. They will play all night while we’re sleeping, but when we get up in the morning and go to get in the shower, one of them will decide that’s a fantastic time to use the litter box (which is in the bathroom).
I’ve always known cats are jerks, and that’s part of why they appeal to me, I think. They’re always keeping me guessing.
And while I’m infinitely curious to what they do all day, I think I’ll leave it at that.
I’m not nuts enough to put up surveillance cameras, and if I did, I might be disappointed in just how lounge-y and lazy they are.