Every Night My Cat Leaves Me Gifts And It’s the Most Adorable Thing Ever
TweetThe lights are out. The house is quiet.
On silent pink toes, my cat Calvin sweeps through the house. He is on a mission.
Wearing a cat fur tuxedo any James Bond wannabe would envy, he weaves amid the legs of my dining room table, swiftly navigating toward his objective. He crosses the kitchen floor into the laundry room, where, in a leap of elegance, he lands softly upon the counter.
There, in a basket, lying atop crinkle balls and catnip straws and boingy springs and fuzzy mice are four rectangular furry toys, with wide black tails. Two are a deep purply blue with masked faces adorned with felt noses—giving the impression of flat raccoons. The other two are frog green and sport a wide silly grin. These are The Special Toys. All possess a certain irresistible quality, some unquantifiable essence that draws my cat toward them.
Calvin gently picks one up in his mouth, and leaps down to the floor. Unable to contain the anticipatory joy, he starts trotting with a jaunty canter and a proud feline prance back through the kitchen and the dining room. As he travels, he raises his voice in the song of his people, his call barely muffled by the prize he carries in his mouth.
Calvin slows down a bit just as he rounds the corner of the dining room doorway, and then stops as he peers into the foyer. He glances up the stairs; the tail of his catch hanging from his mouth sways slightly as he moves his head.
Now, with purposeful and slow strides, he begins to ascend the stairs. Upon reaching the third step, he pauses to deliberate. Here? Or maybe one more? He stretches his neck out and carefully places the blue raccoon toy on the fourth step.
He waits—just a few moments. Considers the placement. Then thinks maybe it’s not enough.
The cat turns and runs down the stairs, retracing his steps through the dining room, kitchen, laundry room, leaping again onto the counter, grabbing another toy—a green one—and repeats the delivery, his voice a little stronger along the way, with a touch of plaintive yearing.
This time, Calvin places the frog toy at the bottom of the stairs. Then, he sits down. And waits. He hears a stirring from above. The sound of footsteps. He is ready. He is happy. He is a cat who has brought the gifts that will call his human to him.
He starts purring as he hears my door open. He stands up at the sound of my footsteps in the hallway. He calls to me when I appear at the top of the stairs.
“Who’s a good kitty Calvin?” I ask, though I know the answer. “Did you bring me another gift?” I smile as I walk down the stairs, and when I get to the bottom, my cat purrs and meows and rubs my legs.
And so it goes.
Nearly every night for the past four months, Calvin has brought me gifts. Sometimes I hear him and come downstairs to praise my sweet kitty, knowing what an honor it is to be so be the focus of such devotion. He brings me joy with every raccoon stuffie he places in the foyer, on the stairs, and in the hallway outside my door. Sometimes he brings one; sometimes there are all four, stacked neatly in an artful arrangement. Sometimes he adds a selection of additional prizes: a furry mouse, a feathery birdie.
Every once in a while, he leaves his gifts in the dining room or the kitchen; I wonder if perhaps he was interrupted in the middle of a delivery by one of the other cats, who might have hissed him into dropping his offering and scampering to safety under the dining room table.
When I realized his actions had become a nightly ritual, I began taking pictures of each one of Calvin’s offerings.
Every morning, with my first steps outside my bedroom door, I discover what treasures my generous and thoughtful cat has brought me in the night; usually he includes at least one of the flat toys. His is the sweetest, most pure gift I’ve ever had the pleasure to receive. It is a statement of love, a heartfelt effort of yearning and devotion.
That’s why I come when I hear my cat’s recognizable call: to accept his favor in person, to express my appreciation for his effort, and to tell him how much I adore him.
To those who might ask me who is training whom, who may wish to point out that I’m merely teaching my cat that I’ll come when called, I’ll say I know exactly what I’m doing.
The joys of sharing one’s life with a pet are boundless, yet their time on this earth is not. So for now, I’ll welcome every moment of faithfulness and trust and love freely given by Calvin—and my other cats and dogs. A raccoon gift upon the stairs is just one of them.
If you want to see what Calvin leaves me every morning, feel free to follow us on social media, where we can be found on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and on Twitter as @WithDogsAndCats. It is my goal to post pictures of his gifts every day that he leaves them.
You can also follow Calvin (who is also known as The Most Interesting Cat In The World) on his Instagram (@CalvinTKatz), Twitter (@CalvinTKatz), and Facebook (The Most Interesting Cat In The World) pages.
And the toys? They are KONG Cat Cozie Kickeroo Catnip Toys.
The first picture I took of Calvin’s gifts, on May 31, 2018. He had been leaving them for a few weeks by then.
Jasper, Tucker and Lilah look down the stairs at a complete set of gifts left by Calvin. At this point, I didn’t realize this was going to be a daily routine, so I didn’t take pictures every day. Gift date: June 7, 2018.
Every once in a while I was able to take a picture of Calvin with his toys when he left them. He’s so very proud of himself. This was taken at night, right after Calvin delivered his prizes. Gift date: June 16, 2018.
Sometimes I wonder if there’s a hidden message in Calvin’s arrangement. Gift date: July 3, 2018.
Every once in a while Calvin gets creative and arranges his gifts quite artistically. Here is his cat toy installation from July 18, 2018.
A few times, Calvin brought a toy or two all the way up the stairs to the hall outside my bedroom. Gift date: August 6, 2018.
Perhaps Calvin gets interrupted, or maybe there’s another cat between him and the stairs. Whatever the reason, sometimes I find toys in the kitchen. On this day, Calvin mixed it up a bit and added some mice. Gift date: August 8, 2018.
What gifts do your pets bring you?
You may also like:
- CSI: My Kitchen, Part I (a cat mystery)
- CSI: My Kitchen, Part II (a cat mystery)
- An Interview with Calvin T. Katz, The Most Interesting Cat In The World
- I Don’t Always Play With Cat Toys #MostInterestingCatInTheWorld
- A Piece of Cardboard is the Best Cat / Dog Toy Ever
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Awww, that is so sweet. Calvin is a secret romantic. ♥
dood….we N joyed yur storee N we think thiz
iz like de awesum est ever !! 🙂 ♥♥
How sweet is that? We should try doing that too.
How I love this and we can so relate. Our Tortie Girl Scout, brings gifts for her dad when he works at his desk. She especially loves to bring in leaves from the catio and drops it at his feet. We call her our interior decorator because we will find random leaves arranged on the stairs and sometimes on the couch MOL. She also sings the song of her cat clan when she does this. Super cute.
I can just imagine Calvin singing his song while happily doing his gift delivery for you. Like you, I treasure these moments. ❤️
Calvin, this just ups your street cred as the most interesting cat in the world. With a dash of AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
ps – we didn’t know Calvin had his own social media accounts … though we already like his FB page, so I must’ve found it at some point.