Ronin and Myu live whatever kind of cat life they want with very little guidance by me. In other words, they are the rulers of the universe, and we are their mere mortal caretakers. They get away with things other cat owners would shudder to think about, and they pretty much do as they please.

If they want to sleep all day and all night, only rousing themselves to eat, drink, pee, and poo, that can do just that.

If they want to follow me around all day watching my every move and reminding me to take play breaks, they are more than welcome to do just that.

If they want to explore all day, they can do that too, with one rule: if I can hear the exploring, the exploring ends immediately and the desirous area of exploration will be off limits for the rest of the day. This rule has lead to one cat that doesn’t do much exploring and always gets caught within the first 60 seconds of trying and one cat that can climb a vertical and tall set of shelves to reach a ball of yarn or toy on the top shelf while I am one room away and awake and not get caught until the evidence is found, sometimes days later.

If they want to chase each other around the house like little panthers and do battle all day, for whatever reason, be it fun or anger, they are even free to do that. This particular activity has a few more rules. If I hear anything knocked over anywhere in the house, the “play” fighting has to stop immediately. If I hear any vocalizations that are not the sweet and adorable tones I expect to hear from such spoiled and adorable cats, the “play” fighting has to stop immediately. If the thumping of cat bodies on the hardwood floors reaches a volume equivalent to the sound of a 5 pound bag of flour dropped on the floor repeatedly, the “play” fighting has to stop immediately. No biting, and I don’t care who started it, if I see biting, whichever cat’s fangs are involved that cat is in trouble, and both cats are likely to suffer repercussions for having let it get that out of hand before employing one of the much safer fight-ending methods already mentioned. Also, the “play” fighting had best seem equitable, in that no one cat is being constantly pestered when not interested in wrestling. Both parties must be interested in chewing the head off the other, or fighting is not allowed.

The cats know these rules. They have been living with these rules since the day they entered our home. I used to be able to get all he way to a room and catch the rules infraction in progress. Now all I have to do is shriek “Cats!” harshly and take one step or get up from my chair. They stop what they are doing and scatter immediately to opposite sides of the room or house and take up positions implying that nothing at all was going on. So they do, in fact, know they are breaking rules and that repercussions may follow.

Even so, the repercussions only follow if the rule has been broken earlier in the day, there were other rules broken earlier in the day, or if any major rules had been broken within the last few days. So long as I only have sweet and adorable cats for the rest of the day and a few days following, they do get away with murder occasionally.

Then there are days like today, which started out as a day the cats wanted to spend sleeping in sunny spots around the house, ended with cats running around like hellions trying to kill each other no matter how many times I chased them down and gave them hell for it. I had to go so far as to employ the dreaded Water Bottle of Doom, and even that wasn’t quite getting through to them. This evening ended with me chasing Ronin around the house for 10 minutes trying to get my hands of him, 20 minutes of holding him on my lap, during which I expect no aggressive actions of any sort, Ronin hissing at me, and his subsequent exile to the bedroom for two hours while the rest of us enjoyed dinner and playtime. Yes, this has been a wild and woolly afternoon and evening with two cocky, spoiled, intelligent, rebellious little snots.

Things have been much improved since I released Ronin back into the household. They are in the living room right now licking each other’s head. Oh, I know they’d really rather be chewing on each other’s head, but they know better than to even push me at this point.

If I hear or see anything that isn’t two cats being quiet and non-active and making sweet little meows in my direction, I will lock them in the bathroom together until they stop making noise. It is the ultimate punishment in this household. They both hate it equally. I’ve only employed this technique three times in the last two years. The last time was a few months ago, and they seem to have figured out that as soon as they get quiet and calm down, they get to go about their busy cat lives. Peacefully and quietly, of course.

I imagine there is an ultimate punishment beyond being locked in the bathroom together, which would be employed should there be any further destructiveness or fighting taking place in the bathroom, but they have only pushed me that far once. At the age of 4 months, it’s really hard to stay angry at little kittens, and these two had a very high cuteness factor. So I just hissed, spitted, and yelled at them for a while and let them out of the bathroom. Maybe that worked, because the next two times they found themselves stuck in the bathroom togethehr, they spent all their energy whining to get out rather than beating each other up or destroying things.

Ronin and Myu better continue to be sweet, adorable, loving and non-rule-breaking cats for at least the next two days. They really, really pushed every boundary today, and they got busted every time. I want them to be so quiet for the rest of the night I do not know I have cats in the house with me, unless they would like to rubbed up against me, mew sweetly, and beg attention off of me. That would be good too. In fact, one of them is doing that right now, ans the other one is rolling around on the floor nearby grunting to get my attention. It looks like a ceasefire has been called.

Well, that ceasefire had better last a while, because I am not having any more of this cat insanity for a while.