Going for a ride on the Rage Cycle

It’s going to be a short one this week, y’all. I am exhausted. Our kitty is still working her way through the Rage Cycle. It’s something she goes through every time we go out of town and leave her behind. This one has been especially bad because we’ve had a few trips relatively close together, so she hasn’t had adequate time to complete one Rage Cycle before another one starts. Plus we had some guests come stay at our house shortly after we got home, so she now has the Rage Cycle going with a dash of confusion.

If you’re not familiar with how this process works, let me walk you through it.

STAGE ONE: Pre-rage. The Cat notices we are getting ready to go somewhere. She sees suitcases piling up by the garage door. She notices we’re shuffling around hurriedly trying to round stuff up. She starts sniffing the suitcases and frantically marking them with her scent. (Thankfully, she is a female kitty, and therefore “marking with her scent” means rubbing up against the suitcases and not whizzing on them.)

Then she sees the cat carrier come up from the basement, which moves us to

STAGE TWO: Beginning rage. The Cat starts trying to run and hide. We catch her. We start putting her into the carrier. (Yes, it’s a two person job.) She flails and meows in protest. Finally we get her in the carrier and load her in the car, where we begin

STAGE THREE: The bargaining. The Cat starts making the really low, mournful sounding meows. The ones that sound more like “mrrrrrrooooooooow.” And she turns on the saucer eyes and looks at me through the carrier as if to say “if you let me out of here now, I promise not to destroy you completely…I mean, I promise to love you forever.”

“Don’t fall for it,” says The Husband.

STAGE FOUR: The arrival. We reach the vet’s office to drop her off for boarding. She attempts to bargain, but starts to quiet down as she knows we are at the point of departure. She is whisked away for boarding and I am ushered out the door quickly by The Husband before I can feel guilted into taking her with us.

STAGE FIVE: Intermediate rage. I can’t see what The Cat is doing, but I imagine her pacing around her pen plotting her revenge. The Husband assures me she’s probably having a good time playing with the staff. I still feel some lingering guilt.

STAGE SIX: The respite. I go to pick up the kitty from the vet. She is happy to see me, so we get a brief break from the rage. But then she remembers that she has to ride in the car to get home, and the hate is back on.

STAGE SEVEN: Advanced rage. The Cat tells me how angry she is at being abandoned the whole way home. I let her out of the cat carrier and she scampers off into oblivion. (Oblivion usually means hiding under the bed in the guest bedroom.) If she had the means to do so, I’m sure she would track down a lighter and torch the carrier before scampering off into oblivion.

STAGE EIGHT: The indecision. Over the next few days, The Cat cannot decide whether she loves me, hates me, or hates that she loves me. She will be extremely clingy, walking by my feet at all times, which could be seen as a loving gesture of wanting to be near me. Or she could be plotting to make me trip and fall down the stairs to my death so I can never leave her again. She will also refuse to sit in my lap and be cuddled, but she will also refuse to stop staring at me while I sit on the couch. She will also stand outside the bedroom while I’m trying to sleep and sing protest songs, until I open the door and ask what the hell she wants, at which point she walks off in disgust.

Seriously. She does that.

STAGE NINE: The rage subsides. Eventually after a few days (or weeks, depending on her level of rage) The Cat will get back to normal. She will start sitting on my lap again. And she will no longer feel the need to wake me up with protest music in the middle of the night.

Right now, we’re somewhere between stage seven and eight. She can’t scamper off into oblivion because the guest bedroom is occupied. So she’s trying to find an outlet for her rage, and she can’t quite figure it out. Hopefully we’ll get to stage nine sooner rather than later. Until then, pray for my sanity. I’ll see y’all next week.