PC and the Paper Ball

Posted Tue Jan 17, 2006 in

Years ago my wife and I had a cat we think was a Russian blue. She came to us via a college friend who could no longer keep her. She was named PC.

She settled right in with us and quickly became part of our family. She was an inside cat (I’m a believer in inside cats), but managed to escape a couple of times. I made the mistake of having her de-clawed, which I’ll never do again. I was young and didn’t realize what it meant. The vet didn’t do anything to dissuade us, either.

She loved to play with wadded up paper. Wife’s brother-in-law came to visit once and wadded up his cellophane cigarette wrapper. PC immediately appeared, looking expectantly at him. None of us knew what was going on. In jest, he tossed the wrapper and she pounced on it, batting it around the room (and the entire house) and chasing it around like a fiend. She continued for several minutes, then returned to him with the wrapper and dropped it. Her intent was for him to pick it up and toss it again.

Thereafter no one could wad up a piece of paper to discard. She would retrieve the ball from the trash can and play with it. In fact, when she heard the rattle of the wadding process, she would show up immediately and wait for you to toss it.

It became a family game. Although we didn’t have scorpions in Missouri, where we lived at the time, I was trained to shake out my boots in the morning because I often found a ball of wadded up paper in the toe from where PC had deposited it.

She would play with a small ball, but she really preferred a wadded up piece of paper. I think the rattle is something she liked.

She was a good cat and a good friend.