Blight the cockroach killer

“Blight” is actually the contraction of black and white, the name given to our adolescent male cat who was sired by Merca (for Mercado since she was given by my suki, the banana wholesaler). Nothing fancy or exotic. Just a plain wide-eyed, grey and white feline who seemed to have learned of our ways and habits more than we did his.

But among all the feline creatures that have passed our household and spent their growth years before they eloped or were driven out by more aggressive alley cats, Blight appears to be doing what we expect him to do – exterminate all the rats and cockroaches in the apartment. He learned his pleasant ways from his mother, of course, for Merca likes being petted and fondled. She is the only cat who has so far learned to hug my belly in a very endearing way, purring and emitting a soft “meow” while rubbing her whiskers against my skin or my shirt.

Nobody taught her that. It just seemed to be the natural consequence of affectionate caring that we, humans in the household, have shown her. Now she habitually jumps on my lap when I call her or signal to her with my hands. Blight has followed suit but instead of an affectionate hug, he gets playful and uses his paws and mouth to play with my fingers.

Blight’s function as cockroach exterminator comes handy every morning when cockroaches run about and congregate at the kitchen wastes. He chases one after the other in playful abandon, using his paws and his mouth, until the cockroaches die from sheer exhaustion. Jean follows up the extermination with a broom and a dustpan to deposit the dead or dying cockroaches inside the waste bin.

But Blight’s sleeping habits gets the better of me most of the time. Our cats normally sleep after dinner time, then wake up three hours later to play and hunt. By 11 o’clock when I put our the lights and get tucked in bed, the cats sometimes return to sleep or stay outside the house to do their nocturnal hunt

Fruit blender

Their body clock probably tells them to wake up when the cocks start to crow in earnest. This is about 4 o’clock. That’s when they start to meow at the door when they stay outside. If Blight spends the night inside the house, he sits in front of my face near my bed and starts to meow. His noise gets more persistent when the alarm sounds at 5:15 as if telling me, “Hey, time to wake up!”

These feline creatures, I am told, are supposed to be difficult to train. But given their present habits, who needs training?