Clockwork Kitty – Zee Works the Nightshift
A sampling of Zee’s homage in the early days. These were some of his favorite toys – especially carrot in the center and grey kitty to the right.
For most of us the weekend means a bit of relaxing after a hard week of work. For Zee, however, when it’s time for bed, come hell or high water, he takes his job of bringing stuffed toys into the bedroom Dan and I share VERY SERIOUSLY. With the exception of a brief sabbatical a couple of months ago whereby not a single toy graced the floor of our room, this cat punches in for his nightshift like clockwork.
It all started after his kittens, Mia, Peanut, Rolz, and Zeuss Catt were born. I can’t say for certain what his reasoning was, but it almost seemed like he was teaching them how to hunt prey and then bring the kill to Dan and I as some sort of homage to us for providing them with a safe and warm house, food, love, and care.
This was the kittens when they were about 6 weeks old – true to kids, they didn’t listen to anything their parents were trying to teach them…
Typical kids, not a one of them was interested in what he was doing, leaving him the full responsibility of bringing toys into our room each and every night. The task was arduous for sure – with each toy he brought, a ritualistic meowing noise would occur. Since the toys were in his mouth during the meowing, it would result in him sounding like a cat version of Marlon Brando in the God Father! And since he would bring a half or dozen toys or more each night, it really was quite the ordeal and a significant commitment on his part.
Zee – King of his Toy Castle!
As Zee got older, he still brought toys into our room, but usually only one of two of his favorites. Lately however, he is back with a vengeance, bringing nearly a dozen toys into the room. Again, not sure what his impetus is. Perhaps it is having my step-daughter, Jackie, move in with us – while certainly not a bad thing, his routine has been a bit disrupted and he is a cat that likes things to be predicable and orderly. We have also had Rick, our grand dog visiting more frequently, so maybe this is Zee’s way of thanking us that Rick hasn’t shown up for a whole week.
Who really knows? The interesting part – Jazmine has caught wind of Zee’s ways and sometimes she brings toys into the room for us. And both of them during the day use toys as a means of communication – a toy dropped at our feet either means “play with me,” or “step away from your computer and stop ignoring me.” A toy dropped in a food dish is an obvious ploy to get the magic food gods to feed them, and a toy dropped by the front door is done so that if we leave the house, we will come back soon!
Zee is basically saying, “Come on, damn you Angry Bird! I need food in this dish – why aren’t your magic powers working?!”
Jazmine cuts right to the chase. Here is a toy mouse, now give me some people food.
Whatever the case, I am supremely impressed with the work ethic Zee has. He never complains, despite working weekdays, weekends, holidays, and more. I think that cat deserves a raise, don’t you? Or at least a few extra treats…
And here we are present day, this was the loot we found this morning in our bedroom. You will note that grey kitty remains one of his favorite toys.
How about your cats – do they have a nightshift job like Zee? I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Oh, and as a special treat, please enjoy this vintage video back when Mr. Jazz was still with us taken at night documenting just what cats do when we sleep at night!
For those of you that may have missed it, please click here to read our review of the book, Texts from Mittens by Angie Bailey and for your chance to enter and win a copy for yourself!
That’s, hands down the best video I’ve ever seen! It intrigued my cat Ringo, who wanted to eat the phone and I enjoyed a footbath from Felix.
My old cat Ralph, used to do that, I have a picture of him with a Cowboy Tonka Truck that has a cowboy hat on top in his mouth, carrying it around the bedroom.
Thank you so so much for sharing that wonderful show.
Thanks Connie Marie! Your Ringo sounds like a hoot and I can only imagine Ralph carrying that toy around!
Your observations as usual are right on and extremely entertaining! Love the video!
Thank you on all counts Rosemary!
What a great post Deb!! Is that a pair of socks in the first photo? My Marcus LOVED socks. He sounded a lot like Zee only he would mouwwww while carrying the socks in his mouth…sounded like someone was dying. We called them, “Marcus’s sock alerts”.
The video is amazing!! Abby was just captivated by it. She rarely pays any attention to the computer or TV but she LOVES this video. I can’t decide if it’s the music or Zee’s meow that caught her attention. I took some pics of her watching it….I’ll share them later.
Toni – yes, that would be a pair of old socks along with a plush bone that used to below to our dog, Bandit! How cool that Abby was captivated by the video! I will have to share it on facebook to see if it happens to other kitties!
I’m very busy at night too : I have to bring the stuffies I can reach under the bed : I usually catch Bert The Farting Hippo (he’s as big as me), Little Grey Kitty and Pilchard (you know, the blue cat). Purrs, Pixie
My goodness Swiss Cats… that really does sound like a busy night!
That is a great video. Our broadband is on a go slow lately so it took a while to watch it, but it was worth the wait. Flynn doesn’t bring me toys, but he always brings me any mice he catches and drops them at my feet. The live ones cause a bit of a problem when he drops them down indoors!
Darn broadband… sorry about that Flynn! But glad you finally got to see it! What a lovely gift… live mice…
Love it. Mo will occasionally do this…..this call is pretty specific (and muffled by the toy…MOL). Daiquiri will usually just bring her latest fetch toy to be thrown.
I love the “muffle-meow,” Random Felines – great way to describe it!
That is so cute!!! Truffles isn’t usually too busy during the night but once she left a ball outside our bedroom door. I took it as a hint that she had wanted me to play during the night 🙂
Yes, that is probably what she wanted, Melissa & Truffles!
The mom judges what kind of night we’ve had based on the condition of the living room in the morning. Sometimes toys are all over and things are knocked over…that would be a good night for us!
Oh yes., we can relate Island Cats.. some mornings we wake up and think maybe we are in the wrong house – their are so many toys and things knocked over, it looks like a college fraternity house!
Nothing as intense as Zee, for certain! Allie seems to think our Mom doesn’t feed Daddy well enough, so she wails while bringing food (aka toy mousies) up to him. If momma intercedes, Allie looks MIFFED.
That is so sweet. I am sure he thinks he is bringing you a gift.
Gosh, your fur-fam is so nice and well-behaved. At my house, a fur-sib is more likely to pee on a toy to make sure the rest of us don’t want it. Thing is, after doin’ that, they don’t want it either. Peep #1 is constantly havin’ to replace some of our toys. MOUSES!
Purrs,
Nissy
This is so funny! Newton doesn’t sleep in the bedroom, and he spends part of the night moving his toys around. But not as industriously as Zee!
we watched thiz on ewe toob so ya could gt sum hitz…. !!!
zee…paws up…that waz quite de haul in part one…N who took a leep inta de air round 7;25? mia ?
jazz…dood !!! who wuz ya runnin …afturr…ore frum…round de 7:00 mark… ? good ta see ya heer buddy ♥♥♥
Such a funny article! Love your site- you have a lot of great writing, advice and the best stuff for cats and ther owners- thanks for a good laugh!
That’s so much fun! Luckily for the humans, Moosey, Gracie and Zoe are pretty much on our sleeping schedule. The benefits of having senior cats, I guess. 🙂