Don't Call Me Marge: Things My Cat Has Eaten

Some of you may remember that almost three years ago now, I acquired an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, widdle bitty kitty cat.

That's the one.

Well, if you’ve been paying attention, you may have gathered that that cat is no longer itsy, bitsy, teeny, or weeny. He went from being small enough to hold in the palm of one hand to being so disastrously corpulent that if I’m not careful, I’ll throw my back out picking him up. Though he started out with the adorable moniker Shoe, he is now known as Fatty to all and sundry because…well, I bet you can guess.

Here he is in all his fat, fat glory.

In fact, at one point, when I got a second cat, I became concerned that it wasn’t developing properly and hauled it off to the vet to see what was wrong with it. There was nothing wrong with it. In the vet’s own words: “He’s a normal-sized cat. It’s just that the other cat’s so big that he looks unusually small next to it.”

How did the cat now known as Fatty get so fat? By eating ALL THE THINGS, ALL THE TIME, obvs. Here’s a short list of some of the more unusual things my cat has eaten:

Two Entire Stalks of Bamboo, Woody Stems and All

When I told a friend that Fatty had eaten two entire stalks of bamboo, the response was, “Well, pandas eat it.”

Indeed.

Luckily, bamboo is not toxic to cats, not that Fatty would have refrained from eating it if it had been. I should be clear that Fatty didn’t just sit there and nibble off the leaves. He made short work of the leaves, and then sat there for hours, gnawing and gnawing and gnawing, until he had consumed both woody stalks in their entirely. It was a show of dedication that was nothing short of inspiring.

A Yellow Rose from a Flower Arrangement

This one right here.

I have to admit that I didn’t see him steal the yellow rose from this flower arrangement – I just noticed the rose missing a few days later. I didn’t find any rose pieces anywhere in the house, but having seen what he did to the bamboo, I can only assume that he yanked the rose from the vase while I wasn’t looking and ate the whole thing, quickly and with a furtive demeanor.

A Corn Cob

Mind you, there was no corn left on this cob by the time Fatty yanked it from my plate and escaped behind the couch with it. I was a fool to think he wouldn’t be interested in my leftover corn cob, and an even bigger fool to leave it unattended for thirty seconds. When I tried to take it away from him, he growled and lashed out, so I let him have it. He ate the whole thing in less than a minute and then immediately barfed it all back up.

A Bag of Frozen Green Beans, Sort Of

After the corn cob incident, I should’ve known not to turn my back on food of any kind, no matter how briefly. But I guess I didn’t think Fatty would try to steal and consume an entire bag of frozen green beans.

Let me tell you how wrong I was.

The moment I turned my back on the bag of frozen green beans, Fatty snatched it and tried to make a getaway. Hilariously, he snagged the wrong end of the bag, so that he left a trail of frozen green beans behind him as he raced for his stolen-food-eating spot behind the sofa. I was able to rescue some of the green beans, and Fatty ate the rest.

Part of a Towel

Sometimes, people ask me why I don’t just put my fat cat on a diet. The reason is that the one and only time I tried to put him on a diet, he tried to eat a towel:

He met with no small measure of success.

Don’t worry, he pooped it out. But I figure eating towels can’t be good for him. I don’t want to have pay thousands of dollars to have a towel surgically removed from the inside of my cat.