Wineka column-The attack of the devil cats

Jerry and Elaine are devil cats, pawns of Satan. Over the recent holiday break, while our son Benn was home from college, the cats with "Seinfeld"-inspired names came with him and took over the house.

Every morning I seemed to wake up with Jerry's butt in my face.

Later, he and Elaine sounded like a herd of buffalo running up and down the upstairs hall. This was before they broke training to terrorize our little white dog, Charlie.

As the cats settled in, we quickly understood why Benn kept a squirt bottle full of water within easy reach.

Benn had picked up Jerry and Elaine from a Chapel Hill animal shelter. He said he tried to choose one of the scrawniest cats he could find — that would be Jerry — and then selected one based on demeanor.

Elaine, dark with tortoise-shell markings, seemed active but not too aggressive. That's laughable now.

When I first met Jerry, he carried a vacant, spacy look about him.

A skinny yellow cat with white striping, Jerry has the longest, thinnest tail I've ever seen. It's like a pipe cleaner, bendable at any point, twisting around corners long after the rest of Jerry's body has entered the next room.

When Jerry runs, the tail is straight up, except for a crook at the top. It's like a divining rod looking for food. I had mistaken his vacant look for focus, the constant search for his next meal.

Benn feeds him the standard cat food fare, which Jerry and Elaine gobble up. But Jerry also patrols along the kitchen sink, countertops and stove, hunting for any crumb, plate of uncovered food or pot left unattended.

He maneuvers through the kitchen as though walking on a tightrope. No matter how many times you throw him down or squirt him away, he finds a new gateway and pops back up.

Jerry often slept in my lap while I watched television. I realized this was only so he knew when I was getting up and heading back to the kitchen.

Meanwhile, Elaine became Charlie's mortal enemy. She staked out the top of the stairs, like a bouncer preventing Charlie entrance into her private club.

Benn often raced upstairs to separate them when the barking and hissing commenced.

Elaine otherwise disappeared for long periods of time, only to emerge in the living room or on top of the jigsaw puzzle where she liked to take a nap.

When we couldn't find a certain puzzle piece, we strip-searched Elaine for it.

She spent several days scoping out whether she could make the leap from the easy chair to the fireplace mantel without embarrassing herself, staring at the distance. Then she would give up, deciding instead to bat Christmas ornaments off the tree and dribble them across the room.

But one night my wife let out a shriek when she noticed Elaine had accomplished her mission and was tip-toeing along the mantel.

Over the next few seconds, only a few priceless heirlooms crashed to the floor.

I'm glad to report Benn has packed up the cats and left for his spring semester. Charlie just enjoyed a full night's sleep. I turned over this morning without devil-cat butt in my face and realized that one holiday had mercifully merged into another.

Festivus, for the rest of us.