My cat is, on the whole, a polite and well-behaved cat. She knows she's not supposed to go on the kitchen counter, and respects the law, except when I'm not home for a while. She knows there are certain cabinets and drawers she is allowed in, which she will demurely paw at until I open them for her, and certain cabinets and drawers that are off-limits, to which she will never even request access. But what I am proudest of as a pet owner and disciplinarian is that she has almost zero interest in People Food.
This is a blessing. All I hear from other pet owners is how their dining is perpetually haunted by the specter of feral thievery or pathetic begging—how it's impossible to grill a steak or roast some fish without a furry little urchin using every wrinkle of its tiny brain to finagle some or all of it. I value my food security. But for whatever reason—again, I credit myself—my cat understands that there is cat food, and then there is People Food, and the latter is not for her.
There are two exceptions. The first is string cheese. I don't even really care for string cheese, but occasionally get it because a small chunk is a nice treat for her. She doesn't care about cheese in any other shape; the feline mind is unknowable. The second exception is turkey, which she receives once per year, as Thanksgiving leftovers.
This year, my aunt sent me home from Thanksgiving dinner with two tupperware containers of leftovers: one for me, consisting of several different foods, and one for my cat, which was solely turkey. The one for my cat was the larger of the two. This is fine. My feelings weren't hurt. I swear.
The size of my cat's turkey stash proved significant, because it took what might have been one or two servings of turkey, easily forgotten, and turned it into five days' worth of turkey, which it turns out is long enough to completely rewire a cat's brain to crave turkey, only turkey, always turkey, more turkey.
Last week, I owned a cat. Today, I own a turkey fiend.
I first realized something was up Friday night around 4 a.m., when my cat climbed on top of my sleeping body and began yelling in my face. Yelling. Loud, persistent meows. She is a vocal cat, and over her 13 years I have learned pretty well what various meows mean. This one was a demand. It had been roughly 12 hours since she'd had turkey, which was apparently the breaking point.
The next morning, before I had even crawled out of bed, the yelling continued. This was not mere hunger—she always has dry food available, because she doesn't overeat. This was something more primal. This was the turkey hunger.
I tried to maintain discipline in the household. Turkey was to be distributed once per day, in lieu of wet food, at the usual time for wet food. Discipline broke down. As soon as I opened up my refrigerator for the first time on Saturday, she came sprinting out of the closet where she likes to sleep, and went straight for the turkey tupperware. She had memorized where it was and what it looked like.
Quietly, I moved the turkey tupperware to a higher shelf in the fridge. The next time I opened the door, she realized it was gone, and hurled herself into the fridge, rooting around on the shelf where she knew it had been. This was a first: She has never crawled inside the refrigerator in her life, and she has had a pretty long life.
The yelling continued sporadically through the weekend. She continued to receive her turkey on time, and gobbled it down each time as if it were her last meal, and then set to haranguing me. She freaked out every time I opened the fridge for any reason, implicitly threatening that it might be my last meal if I didn't make with the turkey. You have to understand: She is not generally a "food-motivated" cat, as they say. She usually has a modicum of self-respect. This was entirely out of keeping with her normal behavior. This was someone else.
Gradually the turkey dwindled. Here was a looming problem—what happens when a cold turkey addict goes cold turkey?
Monday morning, I'm trying to get work done, and failing because my cat is standing next to me, staring daggers at me. Willing me to retrieve and provide turkey. I acquiesce. It it not turkey time just yet, but there is only a very little bit of turkey left, and I am sick of the harassment. I give her the turkey, and then I confront my toughest challenge of all: trying to prove to her that there is no more turkey.
I show her the empty tupperware. I let her sniff around in it. I show her, very deliberately, that I am putting the empty tupperware in the recycle bin. I do that thing where I clap my hands than spread my fingers wide, palms out, to show that my hands are empty and that I am not hiding any turkey in them. "There is no more turkey," I say. It is unclear if this gets through to her.
It does not get through to her. She lacks object permanence, but maintains a desire to eat turkey. She yells at me through the rest of Monday. I hope that perhaps she will have forgotten about it by Tuesday. I am wrong. Tuesday morning she posts up, staring intensely at me, swishing the tip of her tail in frustration. She is not meowing. She is locked in. She is furious. I do not think she knows exactly what she's mad at me for, beyond that I have previously displayed the ability to provide her with turkey, and I am not currently doing that.
My coworkers/cat's enablers tell me that I should purchase more turkey, so that I can give it to her. I resist this. I will not give in to terrorism. It has cost me peace and sleep, but I know the price of giving in will be steeper than I can bear.
At the appointed time on Tuesday, I give my cat her normal wet food for the first time since turkey ruined our lives. She ignores it for hours. She eventually eats it, and then barfs it.
Today I again woke up to a cat head hovering over me, inches from my face, hopeful, demanding. She follows me around the apartment. The hollering continues. She is looming over my computer as I write this sentence. I am prisoner in my own home—a prisoner of the memory of turkey.
