Hershey Kisses

Ah, where to begin? When one finds several empty Hershey Kisses wrappers scattered around one's apartment, the least likely culprit would be the cat. Right?

After several days of wondering who the hell is eating my kisses and leaving the wrappers on the floor, I got the answer. One afternoon, after a particularly grueling day of final exams, a nap was the only thing on my mind. I found my favorite snuggle spot on the couch and layed down to rest. During the in between sleep and awake stage, I felt Chopper climb on to the couch. He proceeded to walk not so gently up my stomach, onto my chest, then finally right up to my face. He sniffed my nose and mouth, almost testing to see if I really was asleep. Then he continued his journey to the candy bowl that rested on the table next to the couch, just past where my head was resting. He rooted around in the candy bowl and picked up a miniature snickers, holding it carefully in his mouth, he backed his way down and held the candy above my face, once again checking to see if I was asleep. He then jumped off the couch, and took his prize into the kitchen where he slid it around the tile floor for about 5 minutes, then realized it wasn't his beloved Hershey's Kiss. He picked it back up, climbed back onto the couch, and once again walked very carefully over me until he got to the candy bowl again. He then put the miniature snickers, with teeth marks, kitty slobber, and all, back into the candy bowl. After dropping it in the bowl, he once again sniffed my face to see if I was awake (I really fooled him!), then went back to the candy bowl and this time retrieved his favorite candy, the Hershey Kiss. He took said Kiss back into the Kitchen, batted it around the floor until it came out of the wrapper, and chowed down. Chocolate may be lethal to dogs, and maybe to cats, but its not lethal to Chopper.

Since then, Chopper has developed a love for peppermints. (I took away the Hershey Kisses, somehow, I just didn't think it was healthy.) And now, I buy the sugar free peppermints just for him. A video of a great peppermint chase is featured in this post.

Teddy Grahams

Chopper was adopted a few months before my now ex-husband and I were married. We fell in love with him and wanted to be sure that he was in good hands while we were away on our honeymoon. Most of our friends at the time were dog people, so for Chops to stay with someone while we were gone was out of the question. (Most dogs tend to be frightened of this 19 lb monster. They just can't handle it!) The obvious solution was to divide the 9 days. My friend Sara would take days 1-4 and Bret's friend Chris would take days 5-9. We had taken the time to train both Sara and Chris on how to take care of the Monster. Food is stored here, litter box and scoop are here, etc. Our minds were at ease that our Chopper would be in good hands, so off we went!

We were having a fabulous time. We took in the sights, did some shopping, and had some much needed rest and relaxation, but for some reason I was terribly worried about Chopper. I convinced Bret to call Chris for a check-up. I could tell from his facial expressions while on the phone, that things were not going so well. As it turns out, Chris and Sara got their days mixed up, and had both taken excellent care of Chopper for the first four days we were gone. But this was day 8 and no one had checked on the monster at all for the last four days. Let the panic begin.

Now I know cats are not like dogs, and can be left alone with food, water, and a litter box for quite some time, but Chopper is not like most cats. When left unattended, Chopper turns into Captain Destruct-O. I immediately asked Chris to head over to the apartment, what he found when he got there looked like a scene from National Lampoon's Animal House. The house was completely destroyed. The couch cushions were on the floor, lamps had been knocked over, curatains hung by a thread to the window and various knick knacks lay broken in the floor. However, the strangest thing Chris found was Chopper lying in the kitchen floor in a self-induced Teddy Grahams coma. (Bret and I had aquired a very large box of Teddy Graham snack packs through a friend.) Chopper had opened the box (claws like tiny razor edged box cutters), opened every pack of Teddy Grahams, and had himself a Teddy Graham feast. He was drunk on Teddy Grahams.

Chris, being the wonderful friend that he is, proceeded to clean up the Teddy Grahams along with the rest of the house before we got home. He also stayed the night with Chopper to make sure the Monster would be OK after his Teddy Graham gorge.

Up next: Hershey Kisses

The Adventure Begins

On a bright summer day in Columbus, Mississippi in 2004, Chopper Bopper was born. His birth was not a in a typical fashion, however, after living with Chopper for 7 years now, I've come to find out that non-typical is typical for Chops. Chopper was born to an anti-freeze drinking, steel plant refugee mother. What's so amazing is that Chopper's momma kitty was drinking anti-freeze out of one of the machines at the plant, even after being offered fresh water by several of the workers there. She refused, and the result was 5 beautifully healthy kittens. It was the first of several incidents in Chopper's life that caught me by surprise.

Soon after coming home from his birthplace, Chopper earned the nickname "Narcoleptic Kitty" as he would fall asleep in mid -leap, bite, poop, etc. He played so hard that he would exhaust himself and fall in the middle of the floor or his food bowl, or his litter box. It was too funny.

Chopper brought so much joy and so many laughs, but he also brought a lot of...things that aren't so pleasant. Chopper soon developed the ability to spray. Maybe it wasn't so much that he developed the ability, but that he discovered the ability. Soon he had marked anything that would stay still long enough for him to back his little tail up to it. This included curtains, walls, the refrigerator door, bookshelves, the top of the entertainment center, the TV itself, and perhaps the worst thing of all, the tool bench and all of the tools on top of it. (Let the human parent's inevitable fight begin!)

More stories to follow...