When Ryan was a Junior in college, he moved to a place where he couldn't have cats. Anne and I agreed to foster them until he took them back.
That was nearly three years ago.
When he moved across the country for his job, we officially adopted the cats we'd been fostering for years. Ryan misses them as much as we miss him, but it's worked out well for everyone. Anne and I grew to love his cats, and if you follow me on Twitter*, you know that I find the cats to be endlessly entertaining.
One of the cats, Luna, can be rather insistent about us paying attention to her. One of the ways she lets us know that we're not doing her bidding** in a way that pleases her involves pulling all of the tissues out of the tissue box when we're gone for a day, completely shredding a roll of paper towels while we're at the store, and unrolling an entire roll of toiler paper over night for some reason.
All of these things are intended to capture attention from both of us. When Luna really wants to get my attention, though, she goes after my gaming dice.
Seriously. One day, I found two full sets of dice underneath the couch in my office. The thing is, those sets were on a shelf in my closet, in a bag. I don't know how she did it, but I'm convinced that whatever skillset she used could just as easily be applied to the task of murdering me in my sleep, so I just laughed it off and told her that it was a real good thing that she did that. Real good, Luna! REAL REAL GOOD! It's a real good thing that you did that! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Um. Anyway.
A couple of days ago, I took my wallet, keys, and the d20 I carry with me just about everywhere (unless it's a d12 for some reason)*** and set them on our kitchen counter. About twenty minutes later, while I sat in my office, I heard a clang! sound, followed by Anne laughing. I walked out to see what was up, and Anne showed me the picture she had taken, shortly after the clang!:
In case you can't tell, Luna knocked my d20 off the counter and into our dogs' water dish. That's her little head reflected in the silver dish, which actually makes this picture kind of cute.
"She rolled a sixteen," Anne said, a touch of admiration in her voice that I've never heard whenever I've rolled a sixteen.
"Of course she did. It's not like it was a difficult to-hit roll."
Anne looked at me.
"I mean, she has terrain advantage, her target is prone, and…" I trailed off.
"You know what? Forget it. I'm just going to pick up my d20 and be on my way."
Anne and Luna gave me disapproving looks as I walked back to my office. I wiped my die off on my pants and gave it right back to them.
*I'm sorry, really, I am, but I told you that you shouldn't. You have nobody to blame but yourself.
**Dogs have masters; cats have staff.
***Like the one I gave Hardwick when I was on his show.
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That is far too funny for words.
Well, except those ones that I just used….
Stop looking at me like that!
so I just laughed it off and told her that it was a real good thing that she did that. Real good, Luna! REAL REAL GOOD! It’s a real good thing that you did that! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Is there a justifiable concern that Luna will send you out to The Field, Wil?
Um, out of context, the footnotes tell an interesting story together:
Dogs have masters; cats have staff. Like the one I gave Hardwick when I was on his show.
Some of my favorite tweets of yours are conversations between your animals and you. They never fail to make me smile or laugh.
What really makes this photo is Luna’s reflection in the bowl. I’m sure someone will come up with a brilliant caption for it, too. I had a few half-baked ideas but none I’d be happy to post.
the cats are trying to kill us. when they roll a natural 20, it’s squirrel heads on our pillows.
Lol.
My bf has a cat named Luna too and sometimes is quite insistent on us giving her attention. If doesn’t get the attention she wants in a timely manner, she’ll either become more violent, loud or she’ll pee on something to show her displeasure. That’s a siamese for ya.
I’m just lucky my cat is dumb.
I had a cat that thought that sliding across the game board (did this for Axis and Allies as well as Catan) and destroying the entire setup was oodles of fun. NOW I know where those dice went!
That’s hilarious, and really, really cool! If Sheldon Cooper had a cat, it would be this one.
My cats, Kermit and Otis, go at the toilet paper/tissues/paper towels too. Your cat Tweets are definitely my favorite 🙂
Our grey and white cat Gypsy is the sweetest thing ever, but she is dumb! One day we heard plaintive yowling. Gypsy was in AN OPEN DRYER scratching at the back of it, trying to get out. I yelled, “Gypsy!”, and she turned around like, “Oh, this other side is the exit!” Alas. she can’t sleep in a dryer anymore, since we moved. but she is still sweet/dumb! Andy :}
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-c5d5Itu7bdc/Tz9dJI5DzuI/AAAAAAAAI3o/jV_3Q7n8eZM/s640/100_0508.JPG
Hahahaha!
Ha, this is great. Like so many others, I am a huge fan of cats (I am a servant to four of them) and I find that your feline comments in general are simply awesome.
Cat + D&D = a level of win I had not encountered until today.
…My cats just knock pens off my desk or lay on my paperwork to let me know that they don’t appreciate my alternate interests.
Not to re-route the geekiness here or anything, but if Ryan’s cat is named after the Sailor Moon character, then all of her subtle dice messages can probably be traced back to space powers. Has she been trying to lead you into any mysterious game centers recently?
In other cat-related news, I had to explain to two of my students last week that I couldn’t hand back their assignments because my cats–Zelda and Zora–had literally eaten their papers. Do you think there’s any chance I can re-roll their ability scores?
We have a “couple” of cats and I can attest to all of the above. 🙂
Of course, your best bet to stop the paper destruction is to introduce her to a nice big cardboard box filled with paper packing material. She’ll disappear for hours…while the room is filled with the shuffling of claws on smashed wood (ooo, I feel a haiku in that last part…).
I think that cat’s been reading the Doctor Fun archives. She’s working on her resume. http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df9603/df960327.jpg
Our cats conspire with the dogs, we’ll come home to find that Koby(our grey cat) has drug something down from the third floor for fiona(dog) to eat and all around destroy.
Well, OBVIOUSLY one of your cat’s trained skills is in Thievery.
lol…two of my favorite things, cats and DnD. That’s pretty awesome. By the way, I cannot say how many times I’ve had that conversation with my girlfriend where I reference some DnD rule and I just trail off into silence.
My cat stepped ON my eye this morning, at 3:37 a.m., no less. Maybe I should get her some dice to keep her occupied?
You should feel lucky… my cat eats a bunch of dried food and then makes herself throw up in a strategic location so we’ll know what we did and how it affected her.
That photo is amazing! The ghostly image of a game-playing cat, reflected in a mysterious metal object! Cats do the darndest things.
Nice job unloading that d12 on Hardwick. What is a d12 used for anyway? Damage for a two-handed long sword? I think that is pretty much it and who wants to use both of their hands for a non-magical sword anyway once you get past L1? Are these rhetorical questions? Does anybody know what time it is? Does anybody really care?
But a prone target would actually increase the difficulty with a ranged (swiped?) weapon… but since it seems she’s taken training in dice proficiency the 16 was obviously enough.
Too bad it wasn’t a 19, then you could have used your catch phrase. Did you mage hand the dice out of the acid pi… er water bowl?
I am betting Luna probably also had an oath of enmity on the dog’s water dish…
We are getting carpet replaced in our office, so we had to move out all the furniture. I didn’t realize that my cats were such dice hoarders, but apparently they are trying to be in the running with you for biggest dice collection. I think fuzzy dice still count when it’s just cat fur fuzzy right?
you tawt yud roll a crit, but I feeded it 2 the dog.
“Izzata crit?”
Sorry to stoop to lolcats… (I feel a little dirty now)
I had a red Persian some years ago (Mr. Kitty Smashed-in-face) (Persian owners will get it). During gaming, if you leaned a book against the couch and balanced a die on top, he would swat it down, hop down to peer at it and make a little meow. If it was a crit, he got a treat.
Wil, I just wanted to say: After watching your PAX speeches on YouTube, my wife and I decided to start playing DnD. We hooked up with a beginner’s group at Meltdown and have been playing every week for almost two months. It’s been an amazing bonding activity for my wife and I. We’ve also made great new friends in the other games. So, really, thank you for the inspiration!
This makes me #FuriouslyHappy.
This was killing me! As someone who’s 12 year old son discovered my long traveled although now quite dusty and unused TSR collection of books, manuals, and dice, it all sadly and happily made perfect sense. I have just spent the last 20 minutes trying to explain what a d12 and d20 is to my girlfriend. (She’s from another planet … ok, Romanian, pre-Iron Curtain fall) I then marched into the kitchen where my small faux felt pouch containing my collection of dice sits hidden in the drawer under the phone. I then stepped back into my hidden D&D days and showed her my hidden bag of dice. She smiled … And went promptly back to reading the news on her iPad.
For some reason she didn’t seem impressed.
Thanks Wil!
Wow, this made me laugh. My gaming group has recently decided to move our regular, once a week, game to another house for very similar reasons. Waffles, my cat, continually jumped on the table and began attacking the minis. No idea what CR a house cat is, but he kidnapped half the party and took them back to his lair for a snack.
I just thought I’d mention- when you say that Dogs have Masters, Cats have staff- that staff is a paid position, and while the cat may bring you a dead mouse or bird occasionally, that is NOT payment, that is yet another demand of that cat, telling you save this for me for later, yes, yes the freezer is fine. I will let you know when I’m ready for it.