This war has been marked by various, distinct stages, starting with

Phase One: Denial

This phase was characterized by the excessive use of phrases like, “Well, it could be worse,” and, “At least it’s easy to clean up,” and “Well, if we take this spot away from him, then he’ll just go somewhere else,” along with a sharp decline in outside visitors, so as to better hide the shame of our dirty little secret, plus enabling us to continue laboring under the delusion that everything was just fine, if a little smelly.

Phase Two: We Start To Get Really Pissed Off

Characterized by: Big talk that went nowhere.

Phase Three: Where We Think We Are So Smart

Characterized By: Long strips of blue painter’s tape strung horizontally across the opening to the tub.

Secret Weapon: The tape was placed sticky side out.

Success: Lasted 24 hours, until the need to poo in the tub outweighed Tigger’s fear of the sticky.

Phase Four: Where We Think We Have Plugged The Hole In The Previous System

Characterized By: Strips of tape strung vertically on top of the tape strung horizontally.

Success: See Phase Three results.

Phase Five: Where We Are Losing The Battles, As Well As The War

Characterized By: the inability to believe that, despite our combined eleven years of post-secondary education, we continue to be outsmarted by a f^$@ing cat, as well as the inability to find a baby gate that could meet our tub-protecting needs.

Phase Six: Where We Regroup

Characterized By: Lots and lots of swearing.

Phase Seven: Armageddon

Like I’m on the outside, looking in.

Myers-Briggs As Applied To Cats

ENTJ “The Little General”: Assumes control of the family and house. He’ll kick you out of his chair and demand half the bed. Doesn’t purr, but glares while being petted as if you’re only doing your duty. Yowls rather than meows.

ENTP “The Great White Hunter”: King of imaginary bug-chasing. He talks a lot–maybe to you, maybe to something only he can see. Likes to be petted, but only for short periods of time; he’s off as soon as the next synapse fires in his brain.

ISTP “The Problem-Solver”: This is the cat that will figure out how to get the giblets out of the bottom of the garbage can without knocking anything over. Appreciates his pleasures but not a glutton. Stand-offish, but will put up with an occasional petting session.

INFP: “The Little Angel”: Will look at you sweetly two seconds after she’s shredded the new curtains. Can’t resist the kitchen counter. Likes some lap time, but only on her terms.

Check out the rest of the types here.

So I asked my husband, “Do you think one of our cats has an incontinence problem?”

“No,” he replied, “I think one of our cats has a ‘being a fucker’ problem.”

This, my friends, is freedom.

No, not for the cats. FOR ME!

No longer do I feel that I spent 6 years in post-secondary education solely to become the doorman for the 3 beasts who share our home.

Free at last. Oh, yes. I am free at last.

Fortunately for me, the head of the school was unshakably convinced of my secret identity as The Spawn Of The Devil, or else it would’ve been really easy for me to get the big head.

Because what I didn’t know, having no children of my own, is that kids? Are really easily impressed.

For example, one day I was teaching my third graders, and while I was talking to them I was writing on the board without looking at what my hand was doing!

And dude, once I revealed my magical super hero power of Doing Two Different Things At The Same Time, I totally owned the third grade.

So it’s lucky that I live with three cats, cats who are totally shameless and amoral, cats who condescendingly tolerate our presence in their home because we are the only two beings with opposable thumbs who can open the tub of cat food, cats who pee on every single square inch of the bathroom floor EXCEPT the very expensive, state-of-the-art, self-cleaning litter box we purchased especially for them, because it helps keep me humble and grounded.

And I need that kind of real life reality check to balance out days like yesterday, where I once again used my Magical Superhero Powers Of Awesomeness to outwit The 12-Year-Old Boy Who Is Laboring Heavily Under The Delusion That He Can Totally Play Me.

We were once again forced to confront his evil nemesis-Spanish vocabulary words, and once again he decided that the session would yield much better results for him if he could trick me into telling him the answers, rather than looking the words up himself.

We’ve been on the same chapter with the same vocabulary words for an entire month. We’ve had tests and quizzes and homework assignments on all the words related to clothing, and yesterday he still did not know the Spanish word for “clothes” (did I mention that it’s been a month?!), a fact which did not at all make me feel like a failure as a Spanish tutor, or heavily tempt me to become A Person Who Drinks.

So of course, I told him to look it up in the dictionary, and of course he used his super-keen spidey senses to hone in on my super hero weakness by saying, “Why-don’t you know the answer?” (accompanied by a disgusted head shake and heavy exhale) “Yeah, I bet you don’t even know the answer.”

Right.

Do you have any idea how hard it was not to smite him with the razor-sharp edge of my sarcasm? Really. f*&#ing. hard.

But I’m happy to say that I was able to restrain myself, and instead decided to use my powers for good, limiting myself only to saying, “That doesn’t work on girls.”

He was quite surprised to be let in on that little secret of the universe, telling me that, “If I’d said that to a guy, he would’ve told me the answer.”

Well, little one, welcome to my world.

and I’m pretty sure that means that my cats and their elimination habits are now the boss of me.