The Carmen Code

back at bush and powell, carmen the cat destroyed one of my favorite dress shirts and declared my best armchair her's by leaving claw marks and grungy calico hairs all over its fabric. we left that chair and i swore to move to an apartment that allowed me to lock her out of my life.

of course, when we got to our new place, i realized i had too much furniture for a regular sized room and opted for the living room. this room had two doorways, but no doors (a.k.a. carmen blockers.)

and in the first month i discovered that simply ignoring a cat or expressing no interest in it does not teach it to leave you alone-- after all they don't very much care what you care about in the first place. carmen the cat taught me that i needed to shoot her with a nerf gun or throw a beach ball at her if i ever expected her to stop coming into my room and meowing in my eye at 7am, or clawing at my new loveseat.

it was a weird lesson because i don't like being outwardly mean to any animals and most dogs seem to understand the concept of being ignored and what it might mean.

anyway, after too much carmen, travis and i set out to install doors in my room. we'd stolen them from the basement and had a great deal of trouble making them work-- but we were on a mission.

the entire time, carmen ran in and out of the room and i laughed, "enjoy it while it lasts, you filthy beast."

and since then i've had no trouble. i sleep with the doors closed and make sure they are shut when i'm not home. it's magical.

but, occasionally, i'll leave them open while i grab a beer or go to urinate. little trips, mostly.

recently, i was working on a mediocre post about circles and rays when the need to poop hit me hard and without much warning. bubble-guts. luckily, my bedroom is a straight shot to the bathroom.

but when i came back, i found carmen the cat sitting on my desk, swatting my keyboard repetitively. it was almost as if she thought it had somehow offended her-- like she'd read what i've written about her on this blog and hated the keyboard for helping me.

this is what she typed:

98 [;';;;;kl;;l;lll ll;l;kllll,ll;l;l;....;ll;l;;l;;l;klk;;l;l;ll;ll;;ll;l;l;l

if any of you cat-lovers can help to decipher her angry feline message, i would greatly appreciate it. at this stage, i am mostly positive she and i are arch-nemesis and she has it out for me. any information on what she was trying to tell the internet would vastly benefit my better being.

i believe she may be on to me just as much as i've been on to her.

it seems there is a full-on war approaching.

doors or not.