The String Man

My daughter took care of my two babies while I was off traveling in China, Russia and DPRK. She was staying with her dad and step-mom at the time, so my two cats moved in with them. Puff is a string chaser and eater. He loves strings, shoelaces, small cords, etc. He will chase them and gnaw on them for hours. He has chewed through my camera case cord several times and also shoelaces and ties for dresses. He makes no exceptions, if it is a string, he is going to try and chew it. Puff has an amazing memory too. He will remember where he has seen a string and go back to get it when you least expect it. Many times we have thought he was unaware of a certain string only to find it in pieces next time we saw it.

My daughter's dad (T) was playing with him by draping him with a string and waiting for him to notice it then pulling it for him to pounce on it. This is a game Puff dearly loves and they played this game frequently apparently. T wears his reading glasses attached to a string that keeps them around his neck when he is not using them. One night Puff was not finished playing the string game when everyone headed into their respective bedrooms for some TV watching, book reading and then bed. Puff stood outside the bedroom door and hollered until he was admitted then jumped up on the bed and sat innocently for awhile until everyone was lulled into a false sense of security. Then he pounced. He remembered he had seen a string around my T's neck and he went for it. The fact that T was wearing the glasses at the time did not deter Puff. He had seen that string and he wanted it and he started gnawing on it as it was attached to T's glasses and face. Luckily T has a very good sense of humor but it did take him awhile to unlatch Puff from the side of his head. I do wish I had been there to see this episode.