Things my cats have chewed, ate, and/or puked on

Today I caught Dave the cat chewing on some of my students' end-of-term assignments.  Nice.  Now I will have to return them with little fang holes in them.  What can I say?  "My cat ate your homework."  I guess it's original, particularly since it's the professor making the excuse.

At least Dave didn't puke on the assignments.  That honour goes to my other cat, Winston.  Last fall, Winston puked on a stack of student exams.  I really can't blame him.  I felt the same way after I read the exams.  Bleech.

Here are some other things that my cats have chewed, ate, and/or puked on:

• brand new (expensive) stereo receiver and speakers
• CDs
• DVDs
• clean clothes
• dirty clothes
• bed sheets
• towels
• magazines and newspapers (very handy)
• the phone cord
• the shower curtain
• a foam mattress top
• sports equipment
• computer mouse
• my hockey bag
• jackets
• hard wood floors
• kitchen tiles
• student assignments and tests.

Somehow my shoes have gone miraculously unscathed.  The cats have also left my keyboard alone.  For now.

Oddly, the cats won't eat the lovely morsels of meat that I leave out for them.  I have specially set aside pieces of chicken for Winston and Dave.  When I offer it to them, they sniff and look away.  I guess it isn't processed enough for them, and they don't recognize real food as, well, food.

My beloved cat, Wiley, could not be trusted around our food.  He would steal that last morsel of meat that you had saved until the end of the meal -- that one last delicious bite you had wanted to savour.  The moment you turned your back on him, he would be up on the table gleefully chowing down on your last morsel.  He more than made up for this bad habit, however.  Then again, whenever we gave him a leftover pork chop bone to chew on (he really loved those bones!), he would inevitably drag it around the apartment before ultimately discarding the bone in the bedroom of my roommate, T.  T would then discover it, usually by stepping on it.  Heh heh.  Actually, that was always pretty funny.

Who needs kids around to destroy your stuff when you have pets?