The Cat Who...

Anyone who knows me knows I love cats. I would have more of them if it weren’t for litter boxes, hairballs and the fact that my husband Rick says two are enough. That said, I sometimes get my cat fix by reading about them.

My mother is an avid reader and so am I. She will occasionally send me books to read that she thinks are good. They are usually about cats. She has sent me Dewey, The Library Cat and Homer’s Odyssey, a story about a blind cat. They were both fun to read. But the books my mother thought were really good were The Cat Who books, written by Lilian Jackson Braun.  So good that Mom sent me 28 of the 29 books in the series.

The Cat Who books are mystery novels featuring a reporter named Qwilleran and his two Siamese cats, Koko and Yum-Yum. The books titles all begin with the words The Cat Who. The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, The Cat Who Sniffed Glue, and The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts are some of the titles. All the books follow a similar storyline with a murder or crime of some sort and Koko helping Qwilleran solve the mystery. Qwilleran believes Koko has a 6^th sense and that is why he can help solve these mysteries. Qwilleran attributes this to the fact that Koko has a total of 60 whiskers while ordinary cats only have 48. I once tried counting Lucky’s and Halle’s whiskers to see if they were “ordinary” but they wouldn’t sit still long enough for me to count and I kept losing my place. I enjoyed reading the entire series (except the last one, which my mother didn’t like so she never sent it to me).

Now that you know the premise of The Cat Who books, I need your help solving my own Cat Who mystery.  I assure you no murder or crime is involved.  My cat Halle is The Cat Who Likes To Lick Plastic. She seems to like Wal-Mart grocery bags, zip lock storage baggies and the plastic that surrounds a case of water. This last one is her favorite, but that just might be because it is kept on the floor and easily available to her.  When she’s not eating, sleeping or looking out the window, Halle can be found licking plastic wherever she may find it.

Halle getting her "fix" from plastic

Can all that plastic licking really be good for her?  I have tried stopping her by saying, “No Halle.” But that doesn’t deter her. She will stop for a few moments then as soon as my focus moves on to something else, she starts up again.

Halle licking a zip lock baggie I keep receipts in

My online search for an answer led me to some reasonable and some pretty wild explanations such as, cats like the noise it makes when they lick it; plastic bags are made from corn and cats like the taste; they have OATD—Overactive Tongue Disorder and will lick most anything. These all sound somewhat reasonable to me, but my favorite one is that our cats want us to think they are crazy. It's all part of the kitty plan for world domination.

So what do you think? Noise? Smell? OATD? Or do you believe Halle is planning world domination?  To be honest, I think Lucky and Halle have already established domination here in their little part of the world. Whatever the reason, Halle seems content to lick plastic so I think I’ll just ignore this strange habit of hers and get on with my day.  Who am I to judge.

~ P