11.25.2002 - 11:16 a.m.

My cat Hazel is not like Chessie, the cat I grew up with. Chessie never did bad things, except for when she was really annoyed at you. And even then she�d be watching you, because the whole point of clawing the sofa was to get that oh-so-entertaining reaction out of the silly person.

Hazel does bad things all the time. No sense of decorum. If Chess was on the table when she shouldn�t have been, you could say, �Chessie,� in that warning-the-two-year-old voice, and she�d go �Right, off the table, I remember,� and hop down before you even started to get up. With Hazel, you say her name, and she looks at you with that standard �What?� expression. So you get up and dump her off the table, and she gets all indignant. Like she�s somehow surprised that she�s been removed from the table this time, too. No sense of decorum at all.

Which is why it�s so worrying that she�s pulling up the carpet. I mean, I don�t think she�s after the carpet per se. It�s just that she thinks there are bugs between the edge of the carpet and the wall, especially in the corners and near the doors. And for all I know, she�s probably right.

But she�s killing the carpet. The brand-new carpet, worth several times our security deposit and, incidentally, several times what I paid to vet and adopt Hazel. I�ve tried yelling, I�ve tried the squirt bottle, I�ve tried lining the walls with towels and other preventative objects. But I can�t get her to leave it alone. I was hoping the roommate hadn�t noticed so much, but this week she kind of asked me what I was going to do about it�

I don�t want to declaw her. I think it�s cruel and unusual, especially since she�s not a baby anymore, so she�s gotten used to having them. But it�s the last thing I can think of.

And she still looks at me with that �What?� expression.

It makes me want to pound into her head that I am trying to save the last joint of each of her toes, that�s what, but of course she doesn�t know what a toe is, let alone that she has any. The threat means nothing to her. And it won�t mean anything to her afterwards, either, when her toes feel like they�re on fire and she�s scared and confused and missing something for no reason that she'll ever understand.

The worst part is that I know I�ll do it. I�ll declaw her, because I can�t afford to replace the carpet.

I hate knowing more than I have the power to change.

-stonebridge

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