Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Vanity Fur

**Now with pics!!**

Louie is our cat. We have had Louie since the summer of 2002. Since before we got married, before we had kids, before we moved 47 times. Before everything. We're used to Louie and his antics.

He's a typical cat and a not so typical cat. He LOVES people. Not typical. He LOVES to kill mice and birds. So typical.
At times he can't be bothered to acknowledge your presence. Typical. At times he will follow the kids around waiting for them to sit down so he can jump into their lap. Not typical.

But like any cat who regularly ventures outdoors, Louie has learned that he needs to cover up his funky feline stank if he wants to sneak up on his unwitting prey. To do so, he will find a nice patch of dirt or old discarded fireplace ashes and roll around in them. The result is a very messy, but very stealthy Louie.

I can only assume that was his intention yesterday, when he got a bit more disguise than he bargained for.

Elizabeth and Dylan were outside playing in the yard, lest they wake up the very crabby baby from his very needed nap. Even though Elizabeth had a little cough, I bundled her up and sent her out to run around a bit.

You can imagine my surprise when the two of them come screaming across the yard and up the front steps in a full panic.

"Louie's gonna get us! He's gonna get us!"
"Mom! I'm scared!"

I jumped up and ran out onto the deck and after calming the children I surveyed the land for Louie. I found him lounging on top of a picnic table, licking his foot.
Very dangerous.

"Why are you out here screaming? Louie is NOT going to get you!" I said.

"But mom! He's all ORANGE!" Elizabeth said.

"He's all orange?" I was very confused. "Well, come inside if you don't want him to get you."

The kids came inside and I shut the front door behind them. Just then Louie bounded into the house from the WIDE open back door.

I looked at him, and he at me. He was indeed all orange. He is usually gray.
What the hell?

I touched his now orange fur. My hand did not come back orange. His cute little white sock feet were now orange. His head and part of his back on one side, a lovely shade of rusty orange.

Well, this was a mystery.

Not having the time to investigate, and not wanting to deal with cleaning up a layer of orange mystery dust from every surface of my house, I kicked Louie outside and shut all the doors so he couldn't get back in.

I got busy with kids and dinner and forgot about the orange fur mystery until Bob got home when the kids started yelling, "Daddy daddy! Louie is all orange!!" and "Louie is macaroni and cheese powder! He's gonna get me all cheesy!"

"What?!?!" Bob said.

"Oh yeah, Louie is orange," I explained.

"WHAT??!?!" Bob said, again, then examined Louie's new tint and went outside to investigate the source of the orange.

He initially thought Louie had triggered a can of orange spray paint, or alternatively that our neighbor (who we just LOVE) had sprayed Louie with spray paint. But that theory was dismissed when we observed that not only was the top of his head orange, but ALL four feet were orange.


We decided he must have walked INTO something orange, then rolled around in it, like he would a pile of dirt. But where was a pile of orange dirt???

It took Bob about 20 minutes, but he finally found a small pile of red concrete dye with kitty footprints all through it.
Mystery solved!

Since the source of the orange tint is actually a dye, it seems that Louie will be orange for awhile. At least until his fur grows out. I can't see taking him to the pet groomer and asking for a color correction.

5 comments:

lori said...

yeah that is no fair not having pictures yet, hilarious!

Jessica said...

Ha! He's a pretty dark gray, so the effect is very subtle. You can really see it on his paws though. I'm trying to get good pics now!

Jason said...

I am not sure if this trumps our "Kitty stuck to the fly-paper strip" story or not. We'll have to see the pics. I get the feeling Louie isn't as vain as Trouble is.

Jessica said...

You don't call him Trouble for nothing!

I put up the pics but it's really hard to see the orange. It's also not as WOW as it was when he first rolled in it, but you get the idea!

Andrea said...

Crazy Louie!