So the idea is that, if you’re good, Santa brings you gifts. And, if you’re naughty, Krampus wallops you with a stick, shoves you into a sack and carts you off to be eaten later. I’ve got that right, non?
Except, sometimes, it doesn’t work out that way. Sometimes you can be naughty and not only escape punishment, but end up being rewarded.
This large sod is Boots, usurper stepbrother of Antoine, Louis Catorze’s frère-from-another-mère:
You may have seen him on Le Blog in the past, most likely for the wrong reasons.
Boots’ behaviour all year saw him headed for Santa’s Naughty List. However, the incident that truly sealed the deal was at the start of Mercury Retrograde, when he aggravated an existing fight wound whilst scrapping with one of his many Neighbourhood Nemeses (Nemesisses?) and ended up requiring not only expensive vet treatment, but a stint in Le Cône.
Boots had never had to wear Le Cône before. However, rather than glumly accepting his fate and moping around, as most Côned cats do, he fought like an absolute demon trying to shake it off. In doing so he managed to rub Le Cône against his wound and aggravate it AGAIN, so back to the vet he went.
His long-suffering mamma and the veterinary staff agreed that he would be better off staying there whilst the wound healed, since he clearly couldn’t be trusted to behave at home.
Boots ended up living at the veterinary surgery for three and a half weeks and, during this time, he underwent a complete personality transformation: once in Le Beignet (the inflatable doughnut below), he stopped trying to fight his way out of it (although he did succeed in puncturing it). He was polite and cordial to the staff, and he even tried to make friends with the other cats that he met, quite the opposite of what he does at home.
Just when life couldn’t get any better for Boots, he became the supermodel cat for the vet’s Christmas charity campaign. Here he is, enjoying being top cat on their social media marketing material:
It doesn’t seem right, does it? But then such is the nature of Mercury Retrograde which, even when passed, still leaves a trail of bullshittery in its wake. It’s also typical of this time of year in general; during Yuletide festivities of years gone by, a Lord of Misrule would be appointed to incite debauched behaviour and ensure that everything was as chaotic and disordered as possible. And a massive shite of a cat strutting around in his staffed AirBnB, all the while being treated like a king, is about as chaotic and disordered as it gets.
I hope that your Christmas is as merry as Boots’ last few weeks have been. Even though Catorze is very much Team Antoine, he nonetheless approves of the principle of reaping undeserved riches and being an arrogant arse about it.
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
louiscatorze.com 
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