Cat Daddy has just had a Zoom call with his fellow volunteers at the food bank. It has been a while since lockdown, so we had forgotten what a pain in the arse Louis Catorze is during Zoom calls.
Unfortunately, Catorze had not forgotten.
I was having dinner in the kitchen when I received a frantic WhatsApp SOS from Cat Daddy; saying, “Can you please remove him?” I tiptoed into the front room to find Catorze kneading the blanket next to Cat Daddy, rear end pointing at the laptop, screaming, whilst Cat Daddy desperately tried to Act Normal.
I scooped up Catorze, took him away and shut the door. I then went back to my dinner and, the moment I sat down, Catorze started to scream outside the closed door, wanting to go back to his papa. (Hopefully this will answer any questions about why we don’t shut him out of our bedroom at night.)
Him: “Mwah!”
Me, from the kitchen: “Shush!”
Him: “Mwahhhh!”
Me: “Shush!”
Him: “MWAHHHHHHHHHHH!”
After a few minutes of this, I couldn’t stand it any longer. The little sod was refusing to follow me to another part – LITERALLY ANY PART – of the house, and clearly had no intention of shutting up. I didn’t know what else to do, so I scooped him up again and kicked him out at The Front so that I could eat, and Cat Daddy could talk, in peace.
I know, I know: putting a manic cat out at The Front unsupervised, during Mercury Retrograde (yes, it’s here again), is asking for trouble. But it would only be for a short while, until the end of the call. Hopefully Catorze would tire of being a nuisance and would settle down outside and watch the world go by, as he has on many occasions.
The next WhatsApp SOS messages from Cat Daddy were as follows (just the photos, no words):
I opened the front door and called Catorze in, but he wasn’t having any of it. And I certainly wasn’t about to scramble around among gravel and plants trying to catch a cat who didn’t want to be caught. So I went back to my dinner.
Cat Daddy later emerged from the front room, cradling his boy in his arms. Apparently Catorze hadn’t left the window the whole time, and had screamed and screamed all the way through the call. And, somehow, it’s all my fault. Oh yes, the boys have bonded over this: Catorze is pretending to be traumatised by his experience at The Front and, like a massive sucker, Cat Daddy is falling for it.
Oh and, after the call came to an end, Catorze was happy to follow my instructions and come with me to wherever I wanted.
The next time Cat Daddy has a Zoom call, he’s on his own. In fact, I’m tempted to fling Catorze in like a grenade, lock the door and leave them to it.
louiscatorze.com 
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