Hobbes has this funny tweak about him.
Right, I know he's a cat, cats are supposed to have odd and strange behavior, but this is different.
I have yet to meet another cat that this happens to.
What happens is, whenever Hobbes hears tapping noises, he gags. The more the tapping is repeated, the more emphatic the retching. But the tapping has to have a sharp metallic tone to it, like a key tapping on a pipe, a florist wire tapping a table, the film forward button on manual disposable cameras, safety pins clinking in a glass jar, silverware hitting a plate, you get the picture. It doesn't have to be metal objects being tapped, but the tap has to have that sharp metallic quality to it. It's quite the party trick if he'd ever come out for company and if it didn't make him so uncomfortable.
I've puzzled many a cat specialist and vet with this question and when I show them (and I apologize profusely to Hobbes when I do this to him because he is so thoroughly unhappy, who wouldn't be, getting all nauseous and gaggy), they are just amazed. I read an article somewhere a while ago that stated there are some sounds that can induce nausea in humans, something about the inner ear and I'm thinking Hobbes has whatever this issue is.
I try to keep the tapping to a minimum and sometimes he lets me know when I'm making a tapping sound that has a definite yarf factor.
Tonight, the Universe is making Hobbes miserable. I was finishing up watching Scariest Places on Earth, when I noticed Hobbes gag. At first I thought it was because he'd just finished excessively grooming his claws and got a sheath stuck somewhere in his mouth and was trying to get rid of it. When I looked closer, there was nothing in his mouth or around him. I slowly realized the storm we are having right now has changed from rain to icey pellets which are repeatedly hitting the windows making a lovely metallic tapping noise non-stop.
Thus resulting in Hobbes' sour puss face and retching.
Here's hoping the wind is only blowing one way, so he has at least one room in the house for refuge.
2 comments:
How wrong is it to be doubled over laughing at Hobbes' wierdness...
poor guy probably has some sort of rare neurologic or inner ear condition...
Chortle! Guffaw! Begs your vomits!
OK, apologies to Hobbes for our entertainment pleasure over his condition/oddity, but just the look of him there-----it gives one the belly laughs! After all, I can think of many times when I've been quite ill, and when friends or family happen by and see me with hair all akimbo and the mega blotchies, they laugh, too! It happens to all of us, Hobbes.
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