July 11: Express Yourself

RUSTY: Never let it be said I never give you anything.
ME: Hairballs, puddles of urine, broken glasses, ruined furniture: you're like Santa Claus as it is. I would never say you never give me anything.
RUSTY: Well this is new. I wrote a poem for you.
ME: For me?
RUSTY: Well, more like about you. May I?
ME: Against every instinct in my body, go right ahead.
RUSTY:     You captured my body, but never my soul;
    You hate me and hurt me, remove my control.
    You've stolen my cathood, my honor, my pride.
    You show me the world yet you keep me inside.
ME: Hey. I didn't capture any damn body. I rescued your sorry ass. From a KILL SHELTER. You'd do well to remember that, Shakespeare.
RUSTY: I'm not done.
ME: Yes you are.
RUSTY: You can't just shut off creativity, you know. I can see how your simian brain can't grasp the nuances, the subtleties, of my poetry.
ME: Well first of all, it's empty doggerel with greeting-card meter and all the emotional weight of a high-school student's creative writing project.
RUSTY: That actually hurt a little bit.
ME: Second of all, none of that is true.
RUSTY: It's called poetic license. What am I gonna write about, that you scritch me behind the ears real good and that you give me tuna when I want it? That's like cat porn, man. I don't roll like that.
ME: Get any fatter and you'll roll, all right.
RUSTY: You think you can do any better?
ME: Writing this kind of garbage? I could wipe the floor with you. I actually HAVE wiped the floor with you.
RUSTY: I'm not going to apologize for having a multi-function coat that attracts dust and locks it away.
ME: Is this some sort of challenge?
RUSTY: Those who can't do, bitch about it. Those that can't bitch about it...um...are...um...
ME: Quit while you're behind, wordsmith.
RUSTY: Yes, this is a challenge. Write a quatrain about me that is better than the one I wrote about you.
ME: And the stakes?
RUSTY: If you win, I will pee in the litterbox and nowhere else for an entire week.
ME: If you win, you get the whole can of wet food for a week, instead of a half can.
RUSTY: Agreed.
ME: Agreed.
RUSTY: You have three minutes.
ME: I don't need three minutes. Here you go:
    Sleeps for seventeen hours and asks where the day went;
    Makes household decisions but never a payment.
    Conceited and pompous, we laugh when you purr -
    No wonder that we enjoy shaving your fur.
RUSTY: Well, I guess you win.
ME: I guess I do.
RUSTY: I'm going to take a nap. Congratulations. (Walks away)
A FEW MOMENTS PASS.
ME: You're pissing in the bathtub, aren't you?
RUSTY: Only thing YOU won is some of my pee to clean up, jackass.
   

July 8: Assault and Pepper

ME: What's the matter with you? Looks like you went twelve rounds with Joe Frasier.
RUSTY: Joe Frasier wouldn't last two minutes against my unleashed fury - which I swear to god I am THIS CLOSE to showing you now.
ME: Dude, chillax.
RUSTY: Don't you EVER use that word in my presence.
ME: Just tell me what's bothering you.
RUSTY: You gotta talk to her, man.
ME: Who?
RUSTY: Your mate.
ME: And in what incredibly not-perturbing way did she perturb you this time?
RUSTY: She's trying to amputate my paws.
ME: Without knowing the story, I'm going to go ahead and assume that she is not, in fact, trying to amputate your paws.
RUSTY: She's got this thing. It could snap my forepaw like nothing.
ME: She's trying to clip your nails, Rusty.
RUSTY: Well she can knock that shit off right now.
ME: Have you seen what you do to this house?
RUSTY: Instill a sense of gravitas and dry yet insightful sense of humor?
ME: You destroy everything.
RUSTY (taken aback): Beg pardon?
ME: Sofa arms. Blankets. Table legs too. Every vertical surface disfigured by you. You killed the shower curtain and pulled down the rings.
RUSTY: "These are a few of my favorite things..."
ME: Pull it together, man. I need you to focus.
RUSTY: Sorry.
ME: You need to keep your claws trimmed.
RUSTY: All of a sudden you need a manicure to stay in this joint?
ME: Seriously. What does it hurt?
RUSTY: You mean, besides my pride, my own tenuous grip on my glory days of freedom, and my last shreds of feline honor? I don't think so, Jack.
ME: Why were you just looking away?
RUSTY: I was facing the camera.
ME: Dude you have GOT to start watching less TV.
RUSTY: I like TV.
ME: Let me make you a proposition.
RUSTY: I'm listening.
ME: You may keep your nails as long as you like.
RUSTY: If...
ME: I have two conditions.
RUSTY: Now who's creating melodrama?
ME: When there is a turd stuck to your fur, you must remove it yourself, immediately after discovery. We will no longer perform this task.
RUSTY: FORGET IT.
ME: I thought you'd see things my way,
RUSTY: Just out of curiosity, what was the other condition?
ME: I didn't think you'd ever even want to hear it.
RUSTY: Just tell me.
ME: You were gonna have to walk into a hardware store and buy mouse traps, and say "I need these because I'm a terrible mouser and a BAD KITTY," while I took pictures and threw stuff at you.
RUSTY: It was just a shower curtain, man, let go of the anger.

Happy 4th of July!

In observance of Independence Day, there will be no Conversation today.

Enjoy the day off.

July 1: No Double Entendres Here

ME: What was all that destruction a few minutes ago? What the hell were you two up to?
RUSTY: That was all Other Cat's fault.
ME: Her name is Maya.
RUSTY: Whatever.
ME: What did she do?
RUSTY: She gave me that look that says, roughly, "chase me through the house until we break a lamp," and off we went.
ME: And one time you can't just go back to sleep?
RUSTY: The blood of my Cheetah ancestors runs hot within me.
ME: You're not related to the cheetah, you idiot.
RUSTY: Look it up. They're in Persia.
ME: That means they're your neighbors, not your freakin' grandparents.
RUSTY: Yeah, well, whoever my ancestors were, YOUR ancestors were scared to death of them.
ME: And oh, how the mighty have fallen.
RUSTY: Superior eye-paw coordination.
ME: Walk on two legs.
RUSTY: See six times better than you at night.
ME: Problem-solving skills.
RUSTY: Over 100 million olfactory nerves.
ME: Opposable thumbs. Game, set, match.
RUSTY: (Pauses) Yeah, that's a good one.
ME: Thumbs rule, man.
RUSTY: I could accomplish great things with thumbs.
ME: What's the first thing you do with them?
RUSTY: You mean, after I choke the shit out of you?
ME: Yes, Rusty, after that.
RUSTY: I'd learn to use the doorknob.
ME: And here I was hoping you'd learn to flush the toilet.
RUSTY: Then I'd get in that drawer you keep the catnip in, and I would never leave.
ME: You degenerate.
RUSTY: Ohh man. Do you have any idea what it's like, to breathe in the vapors of a plant and get high?
ME: Let's go with no.
RUSTY: That's too bad, because it's freakin' awesome.
ME: I can only imagine.
RUSTY: After that, I guess, the sky's the limit. Learn to drive, speaking engagements, develop a following, get elected, and run things my way.
ME: Then annex Austria, I'm guessing?
RUSTY: Hitler jokes are NEVER funny.
ME: Sorry, man, but you were heading off the rails a little bit there. Besides, you'd never be elected, what with your catnip problem and everything...
RUSTY: My reputation would be ruined.
ME: Shamed before the world.
RUSTY: CURSE YOU, THUMBS!!!

June 27: How'd He Learn Latin?

RUSTY: And where have you been?
ME: "Wherever I have been, I am back."
RUSTY: I've read the Lord of the Rings books, you aren't impressing me.
ME: We don't quote books to impress people.
RUSTY (laughing): Yes you do!
ME: Well, sometimes. It...wait, how?
RUSTY: How what?
ME: How have you read those books? Or any books for that matter?
RUSTY: I use your glasses.
ME: No, I mean...eh, nevermind.
RUSTY: So where have you been? You smell funny.
ME: You might smell my buddy's cat. He's pretty friendly.
RUSTY: I thought I was your buddy.
ME: Humans have more than one friend.
RUSTY: I knew that. I was just surprised YOU  did.
ME: You're a ray of sunshine, anyone ever tell you that?
RUSTY: It's an interesting smell. (Sniffles STUPID HUMAN's leg) Felis catus Linnaeus. (Sniffs) Male. Intact, the lucky bastard.
ME: That's right. That's not bad.
RUSTY: (Sniffs again) Orange tabby. Polydactyl.
ME: Poly whattle?
RUSTY: Thumbs. Shut up a second. (Sniffs) His standard diet is salmon-flavored kibble. He pooped right before he rubbed up against you. HA! There's THAT mystery solved. He was wiping with you.
ME: Eh, go back to Iran.
RUSTY: That's Persia, infidel. (Sniffs) He mated with a female Siamese with a notched ear and no tail about six hours ago.
ME: OK, I'm calling bullshit here. How can you know that by the smell?
RUSTY: Call up your friend and ask him if there's a cat like that in the neighborhood.
ME: I will do no such thing.
RUSTY: Then accept my genius. BOW TO ME!
ME: I'm about to make the stupidest phone call of my life.
RUSTY: I doubt that very much.
(A FEW MINUTES LATER)
RUSTY: Well?
ME: Female Siamese with a notched ear and no tail in the apartment above them.
RUSTY: You know what you have to do.
ME: mumble mumble mumble...
RUSTY: WHAT? Speak up, Ape man! I can't quite hear you.
ME: I bow to thee, I bow to thee, I bow to thee.
RUSTY: Next time, I'd like it in Latin. It'd be "inflecto vobis."
ME: Kill you in your sleep.
RUSTY: What?
ME: Nothing.

June 24: Funny, the Things You Miss

RUSTY: I keep hearing about what it means when cats blink at you. You've got it all wrong, you know.
ME: It doesn't mean that you're fond of us?
RUSTY: Nope.
ME: Or that you trust us?
RUSTY: Certainly not.
ME: Well what does it mean, then?
RUSTY: That we're sick to death of the sight of you.
ME: Ha ha.
RUSTY: Seriously. A cat blinks at you, he can't look at you for another second.
ME: Does this count as your mandatory daily insult of humankind?
RUSTY: I do have a quota.
ME: Everyone needs a goal, man.
RUSTY: See, you understand me. If you ever let me out, we could be a team. We could solve crimes. Make the world better for an hour once a week.
ME: You need to watch less TV.
RUSTY: Seriously. It would be epic. You and me. Putting the bad guys away and saying cool stuff for the camera.
ME: Yeah, they'll tune in by the dozen.
RUSTY: Can you see it? "Claw and Order?"
ME: "Jake and the Cat Man?"
RUSTY: "NYPD Blue Persian?"
ME: "C-A-T: Miami?"
RUSTY: Good one. I could whip off my shades, look at the camera, and say "looks like this one...crossed the rainbow bridge." Then cue Roger Daltrey screaming.
ME:"Catney and Lacey?"
RUSTY: We're done with this.
ME: Sorry.
RUSTY: Gotta know when to stop.
ME: I know.
RUSTY: Besides, in that scenario I'm obviously Catney - does that mean you're gonna be Lacey?
ME: It was just a title.
RUSTY: No, no, no, I think there's more here. You secretly want to be Marybeth Lacey!
ME: She was a handsome woman, back then.
RUSTY: Yeah, she could rock a calf-length frumpy skirt like no one in the business.
ME: Hey - that's Tyne Daly you're making fun of. Back it up a bit, there, four legs.
RUSTY: Oh my god you DO have a thing for her! Gross!
ME: Yeah that's what happens when you still have your testicles. You remember them?
RUSTY: If having balls makes me weak in the knees for Tyne freakin' Daly, I'm glad I don't have them.
ME: Really?
RUSTY: (Pauses) No. Not really.
ME: OK then.
RUSTY: I miss my balls.
ME: That's going on your headstone.

June 20: Big Plans

RUSTY: I want a cape.
ME: Who did what to who now?
RUSTY: I want a cape.
ME: You want a cape.
RUSTY: I didn't meow it. I want a cape.
ME: And why exactly do you want a cape?
RUSTY: They're cool as hell. I saw this cat on TV with a cape and a mask, he was the coolest cat I've ever seen. And that's saying something.
ME: You watched Shrek 2 and you saw Puss-In-Boots?
RUSTY: I did.
ME: And you don't want the boots?
RUSTY: A cat with boots? Don't be absurd.
ME: Said the cat who wants a cape.
RUSTY: Don't you judge me.
ME: What would you do with a cape?
RUSTY: I would dash from place to place, and speak in an exotic accent. I wouldn't be a hero, though.
ME: Of course you wouldn't.
RUSTY: I'd be a highwayman.
ME: You'd probably want the mask, too, then.
RUSTY: (pauses) Yeah, ok, throw in the mask.
ME: Well that's a relief. They'll never be able to tell an orange Persian cat is robbing their stagecoach.
RUSTY: I'd go with a British accent. "Stand and deliver, my unarmed friends, and on the double-quick, lest ye taste my steel."
ME: So...the sword too?
RUSTY: The cat on TV had that great "hands on the hips" pose. How does he do that?
ME: It's a fairy tale, Rusty.
RUSTY: Sometimes I think so too.
ME: No, I mean the story of Puss-In-Boots, it's not real, it's a cartoon.
RUSTY (stunned): So he can't...
ME: No, pal, he can't.
RUSTY: And he doesn't...
ME: Nope.
RUSTY: The world is a cruel place sometimes.
ME: I know. (pats lap) Come on. Come up here Rusty cat, tell me all about it.
RUSTY: I think...I think I'd rather just be alone.
ME: OK, buddy.
RUSTY starts to walk away.
RUSTY: I can still have the cape, though, right?
ME: No, Rusty.
RUSTY: (mumbling) I hope that stupid cape strangles him.