catnip

i woke up today to find that my chessboard was covered with cat fur. orange cat fur, to be precise, which narrows down the choice of culprit cats to one of my three cats at home. upon closer inspection, all the white pawns were also smothered in velvety smooth sheddings (my sister had given all the cats a bath earlier in the week, and i must admit, it's not an easy task. one of our cats, which has a fond dislike for humans, seems only to have his misanthropy rivaled by his hatred for water. and considering a bath combines being handled for the duration of being soaked, well. this had not forbode well for either my sister or the cat. i digress.)

white pawns. and cat fur. interestingly enough, the cradle in which all the black pieces are holstered were clean enough, and the board itself was somewhat clean; had i not inspected the surface with more pedantic scrutiny, i would not have noticed the paw-prints which now cover the board in its entirety. i wonder, had i had access to a csi toolkit, would i have been surprised with the results of dusting the whole set? would there be some intriguing murder/rape case for me to solve? would i be entitled to don sunglasses and have my hands on my hips as someone in the background yells 'yeahhhhhhh...'? actually, i guess that's too cheesy, and nothing could warrant such blatant disregard for self dignity. but i wonder.

so i set up the chess set and leave it on the table where the orange cat, harry plopper, sometimes crouches. this also happens to be the same table where i set up my old skool laptop and do whatever it is we do on the internet. and so i go on with my daily routine, fully expecting plopper to start playing (as i had faced him the white pieces that he apparently prefers). ixnay on the hombre. no go. nada. zilch.

i go off to the bathroom and come back to see that the pieces have been moved (although not really in the stereotypical chess moves i have come to learn, but maybe this is some of those new-age versions of chess that i am yet unfamiliar with). and plopper is sitting there, caught red handed. or red pawed, whichever you prefer. with a black pawn in his mouth. staring at me with his unworldly ala-shrek-puss-in-boots saucer eyes, i can only imagine him saying: 'touche'.

later in the afternoon, i catch him, this time sitting on the chess board while facing the stairs, probably eagerly awaiting his next challenger (which, due to the lack of more cat fur, coupled with the fact that the other two cats we have are either too afraid or too apathetic to be involved with human affairs, i can only assume means one of us [humans] or the resident squirrels that sometimes jump in through the upstairs window.) and so i oblige him, warily humoring his feigned ignorance, by playing a game by myself as he watches on (sweet crustacian android jesus, i am getting really bored if i'm forced to play a chess game against myself). and as he slowly eyed each and every move, probably berating me for the simplest of mistake i had made throughout the game, i can but wonder if he's just playing me all along, having me gotten in a bit too much of his catnip.

or him and the mouse are secretly having a more civilised cat-and-mouse game, one which will spell the end of us all.