Too Many Cats

How many cats is too many cats?

I know people who will tell you that one cat is already too many cats. While their viewpoint may be personally valid, I am not talking about the merits of owning a cat. I am simply objectively asking: how many cats is too many cats?

I once went into a home that had eleven cats. The house was dirty, smelled bad, and every piece of furniture was shredded from years of animals sharpening their claws. I believe this example is an excessive amount of cats. The old lady that owned the house might have disagreed with me but, unfortunately, she had been dead for two days and her herd of feline friends had decided to do what cats do when they are hungry and the person feeding them is no longer providing free cat food.

It was a bit disturbing to say the least.

Since she wasn’t around to defend her decision, I’m going to say the consensus is that eleven is too many. So now we have narrowed down the number to somewhere between one and eleven cats.

Why am I obsessing over this right now? Well, let me tell you.

Recently we adopted two kittens. With the two cats we already have in the house, this makes a total of four yowling mouths to feed (not including EM1 and EM2). I have expressed the opinion that four cats is a ridiculous number of cats to have in one place. Other members of my family believe that four is an ideal number because each person in the house can now have their own cat.

Which is a completely bogus argument. Neither child in this house has a steady income to pay for “their own cat.” Basically, I own four cats and the kids can pet them whenever they want to, then feel free to ignore them when one of the fluffy little monsters is puking up a hairball on the living room carpet.

Four cats means four times the vet bills, four times the litter box cleaning, and four times the noises in the middle of the night as something gets knocked over and comes crashing to the ground.

So, why did we adopt two new kittens? The short answer is: we didn’t. At least, I didn’t. I thought four cats was a bad idea from the beginning, but apparently, I was outvoted.

One of our older cats, Sheba, is sixteen years old. She is slowing down and probably doesn’t have a whole lot of time left. EM1 and EM2 didn’t want to lose Sheba and only have one cat in the house, so they begged their mom and me to get a new kitten to replace the old cat before she dies.

I suggested waiting until after Sheba passes, but the kids insisted they would rather get a kitten now to torment our old cat and hurry the whole dying process along. Okay, they didn’t actually say that, but I’m pretty sure this was the plan.

Both girls started looking at adoption places and checking online for local residents that had kittens. After a couple weeks of looking, they found a family that had two kittens that needed a new home. The family was hoping that both kittens would be adopted together since they were siblings.

I told my family I thought two more cats was a bad idea. They agreed.

My wife asked if she and the girls could go see the kittens and perhaps just adopt one of them. I said, “Sure. Go ahead and take a look, but don’t do anything yet.”

“Okay,” said my lovely wife. “We will just go and look. Afterwards, we will come back home and talk to you about what to do next.”

I think that’s what she said anyway. My recollection might be a bit fuzzy since thirty minutes later, my wife and daughters were back home with a cat crate containing two mewling balls of flea-riddled fur. So much for just going to go look.

The younger of our two cats took one look at the new intruders, hissed, and ran off to hide under the bed. Sheba, our ancient cat, sniffed at the kittens then lied down on the ground at my feet. She just gave up. I think she was trying very hard to die right there in front of me.

Despite her best efforts, Sheba did not die. At least not yet. I believe if she had opposable thumbs, she would have tried to pull the cap off of the bottle of sleeping pills in our bathroom cabinet, but for now she is stuck with hanging around a while longer.

The kittens are rampaging around the house like they own the place, getting into absolutely every kind of trouble they can think of, and our other cat, Sukoshi, is still hiding under the bed.

So, getting back to my original question: how many cats is too many?

The answer is four. Definitely, four. Four cats is too many.

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