The APBA Cat

I didn’t know I had a real APBA cat until my wife found the red game dice I thought I lost a week earlier in a pretty peculiar place.

There were some hints before that our cat was an APBA cat– a pen was missing from the desk where I play the game, cards seemed a bit scattered if I left a game momentarily and the chair I sit in was swiveled in a different direction a few times than I left it. But our cat, Squeaky, a two-year-old knucklehead, didn’t seem all that interested in the game and only came in when I played to seek food.

I had an APBA cat before. May, a small torbe cat who died in 2015, often sat on the desk where I rolled the games and watched. Once, a red dice was missing. I thought May knocked it off the desk, but I never found it. For the most part, she just watched the games. In her honor, I use her as my picture on the Goodreads book rating website; she’s posing by an APBA baseball card of Milt May that I’m holding in front of her. She doesn’t look like she’s a big fan of her namesake, though.

Holly and I got Squeaky from the local PetSmart store. We had two other cats and a dog when we got together, but sadly, they passed away within a year of each other. I was leery of getting another pet. The loss hurt each time and I didn’t want to go through that again.

But then, in June 2019, there we were in PetSmart, looking in the kennels at several cats. We almost got an orange one, but we spotted Squeaky looking sad and lonely in a small kennel by himself. He seemed shy and reserved and quiet. We were wrong in our assessment of the cat.

He had another name at the store, but we changed it to “Squeaky” when we heard him meow. At times it’s a high-pitched squeak. When I pick him up he often squeaks like someone is letting air out of a balloon. Fortunately, the noise is coming from his front end. I fear cat emissions. Once, May dropped a Friskies fart while sitting on a stand where my CPAP breathing machine is located. The scent entered the machine and I woke up thinking either the house was on fire or the sewer plant exploded upwind.

There’s never been any cat gastrophies with Squeaky, but he is an attention-seeker when he wants something. He will get on a windowsill and try to reach and swat things off the nearby fireplace mantle. Or he’ll jump on the ledge of the television cabinet and paw at either the sides or the television. Either way, it drives me nuts and I have to get up and make him get down.

He either wants more food, cat treats, to play with his bird toy or to go outside on his leash and visit the feral c at who lives in the garage. He wants one of those things often. I didn’t know he’d resort to dice-stealing to get his way.

 I usually close the door leading to the spare bedroom where the APBA game is played. But on occasion, I’ll leave it open if I’m trekking to the kitchen for a drink or to momentarily catch something on television.

One of those times must have been when he made off with the dice.

The APBA game uses two dice – a tiny white dice and a slightly larger red dice. Players roll them and use the results to find various actions on players’ cards. All APBA players have scores of the dice around. I’ve got three sets on a lamp by the game table and for some reason, there’s a pair on the bedroom dresser.

When I looked for the red dice, left on a mouse pad I use to roll, it
was gone. I searched on the table and under the desk. Sometimes when I roll, one of the dice tumbles off the mat and desk and hides under things like the laptop computer, APBA notebooks and the other games I keep there.

This time, I couldn’t find it and after a futile hunt, I gave up and used another pair of dice.

It wasn’t until a Thursday, the Litter Box Cleaning Day because our trash runs on Fridays, when Holly found the dice. The larger red dice was under a small white rug leading to the covered cat’s litter box.

Somehow, in the short time I was away from the opened room, Squeaky knocked it off the table and either carried it or batted it down a hallway and to his box. The rug wasn’t tussled, either. It as if Squeaky folded the rug back, placed his find under it and then smoothed it out. Holly picked up the rug only to shake any extra cat litter Squeaky dragged out of the box. And there it was.

 There were hints of his ways. Holly found a tube of lip gloss and some fingernail polish that was left atop the living room coffee table inside Squeaky’s box of toys. He’s also taken a couple of her stuffed animal toys left on shelves and carried them to his hiding spot under the dining room table.

There are scores of APBA players who do have APBA cats. Once, after May passed away, I posted about my loss on the APBA group’s Facebook page. Within minutes, people began posting their pictures of cats sitting beside APBA game.

Now if I leave the APBA room, I’ll either shut the door or place the dice where I know he won’t them. It’s part of what you do when you have an APBA cat.