Mandatory Parker: “Svelte and Sociability”

Where We All Continue To Get Used To The Beast That Is Winston

Please have pity for Parker these days. The Lint-Covered Breast Implant is having issues as of late.

To begin, he’s the “10-Kilo Lint-Covered Breast Implant” no longer. In the six months since his life was torn asunder and the supremacy in his household challenged, Parker lost approximately three kilos, and as of this week, he’s at a svelte 7 kilos of fighting weight. What he’s lost in weight and volume he’s made up in density: he’s back to the fighting trim he was back when I first rescued him nearly four years ago. He’s sleeping better and more soundly, and he no longer wanders the house at three ayem, randomly screaming “I’m bored!” at the top of his lungs. In fact, not only does he no longer advertise his boredom, but his favorite hammock is an alcove in an Ikea bookcase in the bedroom, with just enough room for him and no other. He’s always liked to camp out on bookcases, but now he has reason.

You see, Parker has competition. No longer does he have free rein on the bed at 2 in the morning. No longer can he saunter around the house, loudly complaining about his lot and how we ape primitives won’t let him outside when he wills. No longer can he leave cat food, treats, or the occasional small spoonful of vanilla ice cream unwatched and unguarded. No longer is his litter box undefiled by interlopers. For the last six months, the house is patrolled by Winston the Flame-Point Doorstop, and all Parker can do is try to find places where he can recharge between battles.

As anyone who has ever worked for an MBA will tell you, having three functioning brain cells offers a surprising level of autonomy. Many insects have brains at least as large as Winston’s, and they are capable of surprisingly complex behavior. Fairy wasps are so small that they have individual neurons comprising their entire nervous system, and yet they survive and thrive. Winston may be nothing but stimulus and response, but jellyfish and sea anemones function on the same level, with their filling huge ecological niches with nothing but a neural net and stinging cells. Winston has no nematocysts of which we can identify, but we know his motivations when he drags his claws very gently but very loudly at the foot of the bed when he’s bored. We’re very glad of those three brain cells when it comes to Winston’s regular use of the litter box, even if the default expression when having to scoop it out is “That cat shits like a man.”

The biggest problem with Winston is his tenuous connection to felinedom. I’ve known plenty of cats that acted more like dogs, a few that acted like guinea pigs, and one that was doing his utmost to follow the same evolutionary path as the parasitic barnacle Sacculina. Winston is unlike any other cat I’ve ever known. Take a sack full of random cat parts, shake it really hard, pick out the chunks formed when parts stuck together, and connect them with toothpicks and baling wire, hoping they all work, and you get a glimpse of the Barkeresque horror that is Winston. Parker is emphatic in his use of language, including at least eight words of English. Winston just utters random cat-adjacent noises, no two ever alike, and his vowel movements once got me dreaming of a pack of feral children smacking each other in the head with bags of saltwater taffy. Parker has a very determined trot, especially when he tries to herd me to the back door to let him outside, that is quintessentially feline. Watching Winston run is like watching an experiment in locomotion in early Devonian tetrapods that failed to survive to the present day, with the closest analogy being “tie four or five raw chickens together and roll the mass down the hall like a bowling ball.” Legs go everywhere with no correlation to any contemporary,with the uncanny valley of “no life form in the history of this planet has ever perambulated in quite this manner” firmly plumbed when he tries to change direction. A body with the general dimensions and density of an aspic-packed ham, bone-in, and a comparable odor. Winston is less cat than special effect, especially when he decides to wake me up at 3:00 by licking my eyeballs or, worse, my armpits, and his coloration and incredibly tiny head just accent that impression.

And then there are the actions. In addition to all of his other failings, Winston has a grasp of consent usually only seen in the organizers and staff of anime conventions. He leaves Sarah alone: I envy her in being able to sleep through just about anything, including his falling off the bed’s headboard onto her neck. With me and Parker, I’ve made an executive decision and given him the middle name of “Really?”, as in Winston licking my armpit to wake me up and my only response being “Winston, REALLY?” Winston chases Parker through the house, knocking over furniture and accessories: “Winston, REALLY?” Winston tries to get Parker to chase him and slams into the wall attempting to run away, knocking pictures off the wall: “Winston, REALLY?” Winston attempts to jump on the bathroom counter and falls into the toilet: “Winston, REALLY?” Parker attempts to get some peace by climbing into the alcove in a bookcase that’s presumably too low to allow Winston to get in, and Winston attempts to pull Parker out like a freshly shucked oyster. “Winston, REALLY?” gets equal time with “Leave Parker ALONE, you fox-eared asshole!” Parker would use the gift of opposable thumbs to file for official membership with the UN to make himself an autonomous citizen. Winston would use the gift of opposable thumbs to plug both nose and butt at the same time, if he could reach his ass. He’s shaped like a moldy ham, so that is often a problem.

One would have every reason to question Parker’s mental health upon the constant onslaughts. Parker regularly camps out on multiple bookcases, the occasional windowsill, and a tall director’s chair in my office specifically put there to limit the aggravation. Most days, he gets decent sleep until he hears the random noise generator that is Winston, randomly mumbling under his breath, and opens an eye to make sure that he’s not going to get pulled out. When Parker has no interest in Winston’s attention, he lets loose a subsonic growl more felt through the floor than through the air, and that low rumble passes remarkably well through the kitchen floor tile. In the torrid August heat, both camp out on that floor time directly underneath an air conditioner vent, so Winston’s earnest attempts to start shenanigans set the tile practically humming.

To be completely honest, Sarah calls them both “the Really Boys,” because both of their middle names should be “Really?” Yes, Winston has a real problem with understanding that no means NO, but Parker instigates most of the battles. Without Parker, Winston crouches in the hallway, staring at the carpet pattern he just tripped on. Winston may have a terminal addiction to earwax, but so does Parker, and in early mornings where I can’t sleep, Parker slinks off his favorite windowsill, races up to Winston, and starts sucking on his ears.

Being considerably less familiar with cats, Sarah occasionally asks “Do we need another cat?” I’m afraid that if we adopted another one, we wouldn’t survive the experience.

Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. Questions, concerns, and disgust over generative AI? Check out Contact, Privacy Policy, and AI Policy. And feel free to visit the St. Remedius Medical College Redbubble shop for all of your Mandatory Parker needs.

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