Spec Ops
The plants that we bought lined the cement wall that partitioned us from our neighbors. Blocking the cats’ toilet spots seemed a good idea at the time. It was a terrible idea in retrospect. We essentially forced the cats to turn the unblocked part of our walking path into a mine field. Worse still, rain would often come and waterlog the turds till they broke down into mushy clumps and poop crumbles.
It became routine to stomp, roar, and rush at the cats serenely sitting in our yard whenever I saw them. They would flee; I would go inside. At nightfall I usually went outside to water our new plants. Naturally, the cats had returned to laze among our plants. They often left presents on the way to said plants. The only thing the cats had learned was to avoid me on sight. Our neighbors also had a good laugh as I sacrificed my personal dignity.
Subsequent escalation was necessarily covert. I filled a drinking bottle with cold water and waited till nightfall. I’d make a quick but deliberate scan of the doors and windows lining my street. If I saw no one, I would enter the arena and liberally fling water like an exorcist. The little demons fled before me, hissing at their sudden expulsion. Due to its more covert nature, I was unable to do this consistently. Exorcism by unblessed water proved unreliable at best.
Websites informed me that cats constantly groom themselves to avoid giving off a scent. So I escalated a bit. I effectively converted our white vinegar bottle (75% depleted) into a makeshift squirt gun. A furtive scan, a firm squeeze, an angry darting cat. I watched with satisfaction as the cat continuously groomed itself for quite some time. Then said cat returned with expressions of scorn and derision, sometimes with friends. I decided to save my remaining vinegar for washing vegetables.
Psy Ops
Manja (Emak’s favored cat with the macrame choker) was an example of what Indonesians refer to as a “golden boy”, someone (or animal in this case) that everyone likes. He was favored by most of our neighbors. Manja’s popularity was also reflected in the cat world. He was often surrounded by other cats, including Spot and the previously-vinegared tabby. I might target Manja’s posse, but I never once targeted Manja out of respect for Emak.
I changed tactics since liquid deterrent was clearly not working. I made Manja my “golden boy”. After driving off Manja’s friends, I would rub Manja’s head and belly and say nice things to him. I’d let him rest in my yard. My goal was to nurture Manja’s sense of territoriality. Manja would adopt me and my house as his “territory” and jealously drive out all other cats. Divide and conquer at a quarter of the effort. I could also fill my daily quota of touching cute, fluffy (and hyper-allergenic) animals.
Manja proved a poor candidate for the program. Everyone likes him precisely because he is gentle and sociable. If I approach the group of cats, all the others except Manja flee my presence. Manja immediately flops down for head and belly rubs. He fails as a “Ride or Die” friend for either side, which I suppose is one of the benefits of being universally loved. Psy ops discontinued.
Manja and I still have a good relationship. Other cats flee the second they know I’ve returned. Manja gives me cute cat eyes and lowers his head for rubs. I fulfill his wishes till I gain a rash or start tearing uncontrollably. Then I leave while Manja meows for me to continue. He’s that terrible partner I don’t know how to leave.
Declaration of Open War
Spot is easily the most scornful tom of the bunch. It was midday. I stepped out of my house to eat lunch. Spot sat in the walkway in front of our door, back arched in the universal quadrupedal poop-squat. I froze.
The internet tells me that cats do not ever poop out of spite. Yet those authors were writing about domesticated pets, not stray cats. Further, none of them had met Spot. His face appeared full of feral feline hatred at yet another colonizer in a long history of colonizers on his land. I imagine he mentally “flipped the bird” at me as he dropped his bomb. Turd strike finished, the guerilla cat immediately fled next door. He did not flee far enough.
Child and animal psychologists say the best time for punishment is right after a committed act. I was not about to let this opportunity slide, favored animal of the prophet notwithstanding. I took a broom nearby with a hollow aluminum handle. My head slowly crept around the sidewall to peer into my neighbor’s front door space. Spot sat on a worktable against the sidewall. We stared at each other momentarily. Twitch muscles tensed for the moment of action. My mind filled with showdown music from spaghetti westerns.
Spot ran. I was swifter. I intentionally struck Spot hard enough to be remembered though not enough to be harmed. Spot jumped the retaining wall and leapt into the safer territory of our neighbors. Victory was sweet. The knowledge that my neighbors may have seen me could not detract from savoring the moment.
Bioweapons
Spot’s punishment and my predictably menacing presence eventually led to a brief detente in our cold war. We experienced a brief reduction in the average number of turds/day. I ignored the cats as long as they fled from me. Then our visa expired and we had to fly to Singapore for a visa run. We arrived home four days later to find a fresh set of piles. The cats also left two large, dead rats. The one left next to our front door was eaten down to a head, tail, and spine. The other lay in our front yard uneaten and became sun-dried rat.
My refreshed state-of-mind instantly evaporated. I had been ready to pick up a few turds. That the quantity of turd exceeded expectations did not throw me out half as much as the dead rats. This was a whole new level of biohazard I had not prepared myself to decontaminate. I put my bags down with a weary sigh and started cleanup.
Spot locked eyes with me as I swept up poop and carcass. We squinted each other down across my fence. An instant of insanity overtook me. I took the whole rat and flung its stiff, sun-dried carcass at Spot. Spot sensibly fled despite the fact that a stiff, dry rat carcass is heavy, unwieldy, and not terribly aerodynamic. It was a clean miss. The carcass sat in front of our fence for three days, a testament to my anger at the entire situation.
“Don’t be lazy!!” Auntie’s stern voice instantly snapped me out of my daily early morning haze.
“I’m sorry?”
”Don’t be lazy!! You let the dead rat sit in front for three days! If you let the dead rat sit there it will encourage others to toss garbage into your yard! Also it looks bad. You must be a good neighbor, yes?”
“Iya…. sorry Auntie…” Embarrassment at my semi-public chastisement mixed with guilt. She was right and we both knew it. I looked for the rat.
“You should apologize to Emak. She picked it up and disposed of it.”
“Okay, I will make sure to apologize to Emak. Sorry again, Auntie. I’ll go now, yes?”
“Don’t be offended! Consider it a lesson for next time.”
“Iya, thank you again Auntie.” I bowed properly and nonchalantly fled the scene. Down my street in the gutter was a stiff, desiccated, but waterlogged rat carcass. I was fairly certain Emak had swept it into the gutter and let the current take it away. I wish I’d thought of that.
Combined Arms
Dana reamed me that same night, though she does not agree with this characterization. I confessed my contrition and repentance. I also confessed my profound irritability in the heat of the moment. It was easy for Dana to tear into me precisely because she never picks up after the cats. She doesn’t shovel the shit.
This is per our marital contract, unwritten article 2 paragraph 1, which I suspect states something akin to, “The wife shall never approach, touch, or come in contact with, intentionally or otherwise, things of a dead, foul, excremental, or generally repulsive nature. The husband holds responsibility of disposal regardless of cause, including herself.” As yet no amount of appeals to adulthood or simplicity have moved her to excise this unwritten article. I don’t mind too much after 14 years of going against “the immovable object”. It’s simply that I’d already been publicly pilloried by our neighbor and I didn’t need more.
Dana’s surprise at my near-anger allowed me to propose a technological solution. I pushed to buy ultrasonic cat repellent. Dana was afraid the emitter’s radius would be too large and consequently drive the cats away from our neighbors’ yards. Would scandal ensue if they found out? I answered that the cement wall would block most of it. If the cats were not in our neighbor’s yards, no problem. They save money on cat food. She ultimately vetoed the repellent and said that (a) she would look for other things that might work; (b) help clean up the daily turds.
Thus it was that I came home the next day and found that the walkway directly adjacent the cement wall (the segment not already covered by plants) was covered in spiky plastic mesh. The spikes ostensibly kept the cats from pooping in that area. All well and good, but the mesh is hideous. The walkway also reeked of lemongrass and something citrus. Dana greeted me with a huge smile. “Look Josh! I bought alternatives! What do you think?”
…….”It’s really ugly and it smells like insect repellent. You’ve essentially traded one ugly for another that’s more hygienic. Thanks?”
To her credit, the oil works well. The cats refused to poop on the walkway at all as long as the oil is there. The approach has two major problems. First, it was rainy season. The oil always washed away with the day’s rain. Second, it’s an expensive habit. Each bottle of aromatic oil is $10 USD, and we used one bottle every few days during the rainy season. There are drug habits with lower costs.
The spikes were only effective in that the cats pooped anywhere the spikes were not. Dana optimistically stated, “Well, at least they’re not pooping next to the wall anymore.” I pointed out that this simply increased the probability of stepping in a fresh pile in the middle of the path. She pointed out that I should stop being a pessimist.
I suppose at this point the cats started to miss their old toilet. That, or they took on the challenge “because it was there”. We started finding turds near the wall between plant pots and spike strips. One day we found a turd that partially rested on the spikes themselves. Per our new shared oral contract, Dana cleaned the spikes off.
Their coup de grace came a week later. For unknown reasons, two spike strips formed a small isosceles triangle with the cement wall as base. A huge turd sat in the base of the triangle where the wall met the two strips. Yet the triangle itself was not big enough to fit a cat. Additionally, each strip of spikes was about 3.5 inches wide. In other words, the cat had to contort itself to poop in that spot. I laughed as I imagined Spot determinedly contorting himself to squeeze the turd out in this singular location. It was a worthy “F-you”.
Armistice
A neighbor raised the possibility it might help if I wall off our fence to prevent easy ingress. She pointed to her fence. It was an awkward conglomeration of metal bars, plastic sheeting, and concertina wire. Thus I found myself a the hardware store and bought many yards of hard wiremesh. I attached the wiremesh to my fence with zipties. It was neither beautiful nor even in the realm of modern art. At least our front yard did not resemble a prison.
It turns out our neighbor’s suggestion was correct. The cats were hesitant to enter without equally easy egress. The slower-learners came anyway. Upon sight they scattered everywhere only to find all the exits had been blocked. I had become the star of my own horror movie… and I loved it.
Whether by divine providence or (divine) wiremesh, this last month has been peaceful. We have a detente in effect. They do not poop in my yard, and I don’t do whatever terrible thing they imagine I will visit upon them. The squeaking hinge of our front gate tells Spot and his cronies it is time to flee. Others stare at me with their beady eyes till I head in their direction. The most courageous (or most exhausted / desperate) plaintively meow at me, asking for permission to stay and be left alone. Whether I allow it or not depends on my whimsy. Manja flops over and demands attention. See, the price of keeping paradise is a new pecking order:
- Manja
- Lords of the House (Dana and I)
- Obsequious grey tabbies
- The new malnourished kitten that can enter anywhere
- Spot and cronies