Blogmas | Bad Kitty (writing prompt)

Howdy!

I was really in the mood to write some holiday inspired stories this year as my original idea of double the amount of Christmas albums didn’t exactly pan out, so I thought maybe this would be a better option for myself!

I found this prompt on Pinterest, and the site where you can visit to see more is Holloway’s Hideaway. As a cat owner, I thought this was just the perfect prompt for me to do. Although I have to say, none of our cats (including Oliver) are never inside long enough to take an interest in the actual fully decorated Christmas tree. My sister and brother-in-law’s cats are another story, they came home one night to find that somebody might’ve been stuck some place and managed to take the lower half of the tinsel off the tree entirely as there was a long strand lying across the floor.

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They watched endlessly as the family cat began the assault on the newly decorated Christmas tree.

We start our story in a family home out in the country, the closet town is about 15 miles so the people that normally live in the house, don’t get very many distributions unless it’s grunting noises from the cows getting comfortable outside in the stable. Other than that, it’s relativity peaceful.

Tonight is Christmas Eve, and the family has their daughter Karri and her children staying over for the festive time. Bob, the patriarch of the household is the last to go to bed but first he silently checks up on everybody in the guest rooms to see them queityly dreaming away in their beds. He notices that the family cat Bozo has made himself a nice little bed in between his daughter’s legs, which made him smile because he knows how much Bozo misses the family being around the house constantly. After overseeing the rooms, he slowly makes his way into his own bedroom to fall asleep before the real fun begins.

Unfortunately, he made a bad mistake by leaving the bedroom door of Karri’s room slightly open. Bozo wasn’t necessarily getting a good night’s sleep with his former buddy, he was getting popped on the head and at the last, she rolled over both of her legs together in a tight squeeze that caused the cat to snap and start growling at her. At this time, Karri was in and out of consciousness and heard a growl coming from below her legs. She turned around halfway to see a furious cat missing half of its tail. She began to look around the headboard in case there was a bug of some sort and he was warning her about it, but nope. As soon as she made the turnaround, her legs spread apart and the cat took off running out of the room!

Bozo got the entrance of the living room before stopping to lick himself at the tail to make sure everything wasn’t damaged or worse fluffed up more than usual. He thought about trying out the kid’s room but figured that was a death trap waiting to happen, so he decided to stay out of those rooms completely.

Since it would be Christmas tomorrow, the children talked their grandparents to leave the twinkle lights on so that Santa would be see them from the patio doors. Bozo was over nine years old, he’s been around Christmas trees before but for the first time ever, the lights were enchanting to him. They were almost like a siren calling out to him, and once he saw them, he immediately was put into a trance-like state and began to sniff the pines and ornaments from both the past and present. The smells were intoxicating for the old cat, he suddenly lost control of his body and got up on his hind legs and started to pick at the wires of the lights and fluffy strand of tinsel that surrounded the tree from top to bottom.

What puzzled Bozo was the fact that he wasn’t interested in the nativity scene that was about two inches from his back paws. He has a history with rubbing up against them that would result in knocking one or two down but for once he turned his attention to the actual tree itself.

Despite being colorblind he quickly figured out the lights were three wires fused together to create a small but strong band. When he was a kitten, Bob’s children used to feed little Bozo small bites of Twizzlers’ so he mesmerized that twisty pattern and just assumed this was a special treat all around the Christmas tree. He began to chew on the cords and with his sharp teeth made some tiny puncture marks along the bright lights. He wasn’t very interested in the lights themselves, as they were slightly warm on the roof of his mouth, the wires were cool to the touch so there wasn’t anything to worry for that.

Once he realized that he wasn’t able to swallow anything with each bite, he decided to walk around on his back legs to the other side but still the same result happened. Bozo grew frustrated, he hated to be teased with his food, especially his treats so then he became radical with his decision to sit back up and lick the sides of his mouth, all the while still looking up at the tree, contemplating a good spot to try next and he latched onto a spot directly in the middle of the tree, where all of the glass and memorable baubles were placed.

Once finding his prey, he took a couple of steps back from his original position and crouched down to the floor, never breaking contact with his special spot. He was ready and used all of his energy to leap across the room to land at the wrong spot and he realized how bad he calculated his misfortune and when he went to climb the rest of the way, the hook of an ornament stab him in the padding of his right back paw and he let out a high-pitched meow, suddenly spooked he jumped off of the tree for good but not without it falling down with him.

He landed at the corner of the tree so when it fell in front of him, he wasn’t injured by it too much. There were small droplets of blood that came off the bottom of his paw but all the floor contained was a dark green mess with golden-sparkled tinsel and rainbow colored lights that were slightly dimmed as the plug was almost out of its socket in the wall. There was also shattered glass on and underneath the disgraced tree. Bozo was stunned as he just stood in front of him. The puzzled look on his face continued as the family, who were awaken by the sheer thud and glass breaking, ran into the room with their mouths open wide looking at both the mess and the unsuspecting cat at the side.

So what did you think of this? Tell me a story about your cat (or dog) ruining something very beloved to you? How do you keep your animals away from the Christmas decorations in your home?