▸ Column · Present-day modern era — Logan at his current gruff age, the leash-vs-instinct axis in full operation
WOLVERINE replies.
Replied to by Wolverine, with a rebuttal from Sabretooth.
The letter
Dear Logan and Mr. Creed,
My boyfriend Anwar moved in four weeks ago, and my orange tabby, Biscuit, has been conducting a focused campaign against him ever since. The target: his work shirts. Every time he irons one and lays it on the bed before his shower, she climbs onto the crispest one she can find and refuses to move. Her own cat bed sits three feet away, untouched. She has never once sat on anything of mine. Yesterday he walked into a client meeting in a navy blazer covered in orange fur — looked like he'd hugged a tangerine.
Anwar says she's marking territory; I say she's just being difficult; neither of us can agree. We're split between buying out the global supply of lint rollers and seeking professional cohabitation counseling — probably in that order. How do I broker peace before this cat drives my boyfriend to store his dress shirts at his sister's place?
— Outnumbered by Biscuit in the Suburbs
Wolverine replies
That cat ain't bein' a jerk. She's bein' an animal, which is different, and most people can't tell the gap.
Her world changed. One month ago everything smelled right, everything was hers, and then a new presence moved into the middle of it. She can't sit you both down and say that, so she sits on the shirts. What she picks isn't random — it carries the most unfamiliar scent, and she's doing the only thing she knows how to do about it.
I know this because I've met the thing she is from the inside. I know what it is to act on instinct when your territory shifts and you don't have words for the feeling. Takes time. Doesn't mean you don't come around.
Had a kid — Laura — walked into my life feral as anything. Trusted nobody. Took months before she'd sit in the same room without her eyes on every exit. Didn't shove her. Didn't make her wrong for how she came to me. She came around on her terms, and she came around for real.
Have Anwar feed Biscuit. Not as a trick — just let him be the one with the food a few times a week. Give her the chance to decide on her own. Keep the good shirts in the closet 'til she does.
She's not saying no. She's saying not yet. That's different.
— Wolverine
Sabretooth weighs in
Tuna and patience. Beautiful, runt. A century old and that's what you've got.
Here's the read you're too soft to take: that cat sorted this situation in forty-eight hours. New male in the territory, soft enough to let a ten-pound animal dictate his entire professional wardrobe — she clocked it and made her call. She's not saying "not yet." She's saying "I see exactly what you are."
The problem isn't Biscuit. She's the only honest one in the apartment.
Anwar walked into a client meeting wearing an orange tabby because nobody in that house has the teeth to tell him what that means. The cat does. She tells him every single morning.
"Broker peace." That's prey language. The cat didn't declare war. She just told the truth.
— Sabretooth
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