August 2014 we brought home a kitty. We named him Iroh after a character from Avatar the Last Airbender (the Nickelodeon cartoon). Turns out the name was quite appropo. He’s a chunky baby – 13 lbs. He loves to eat, has a sensitive pallet, sleeps all day (what cat doesn’t?) and is an excellent mouser/warrior. 

But shortly after he came to live with us, we began to notice something different about our new little buddy. He wouldn’t drink out of his water dish. I’d fill it up with fresh water every day but he wouldn’t touch it. Instead, he would wait until someone left a glass of water unattended and then drink right out of the glass, sometimes sticking his face way, way down into it. 

A few months after he came to live with us we moved to a bigger house, a little way out of the city. We were excited about being able to let him outside more. There’s a cat door at our new place which makes it easy for him to come and go. He likes to hunt at night and sleep during the day. And one of his favorite places to sleep is on my bed. 

Now, I like to take a glass of water to bed with me at night and I keep it on my nightstand. Iroh also liked my glass of water. He could come home from hunting in the morning, crash on my bed and drink out of my glass whenever he was thirsty. It was the perfect situation for him. But I didn’t really like it too much. I used to use the same glass for a couple nights, I’d just refill it in my bathroom sink. But now I could never tell if Iroh had taken a drink from the glass or not. 

I finally came up with a solution. I bought a little glass dish, filled it with water and put it in my bathroom. Eventually, Iroh figured out what was going on and started drinking from the glass dish in the bathroom. The bathroom is right next to my bed so he could still sleep comfortably and have access to water.

Something else that’s a little weird about me – I’m kinda picky about which bathroom I use when I’m at home. Our new house has 4 toilets and I really only like to use my own. Sometimes I use one of the other ones but only when necessary. Most of the time, I’ll walk all the way up the stairs to my bedroom so I can use my own bathroom. My office is out in the extra room in the garage and even when I’m working, if I have to go, I walk past the bathroom in the garage through the house up a flight and a half of stairs to my bedroom. It’s ridiculous, I know, but it’s my house and I can do what I want. 

All of this together has created kind of a weird situation. This is how a normal day goes now: Iroh comes home from hunting and first eats from his food dish. Then, he goes upstairs and jumps up on my bed. He gives himself a kitty bath then goes to sleep. Whenever he gets thirsty, he hops off the bed and goes into my bathroom to drink from his little glass dish. If I’m around, I make sure the water is fresh for him. I go about my day until… I have to use the ole potty. Then, I go upstairs and shut the bathroom door and you know… But lately when I use the bathroom, Iroh comes to the door and meows until I’m done. When I open the door, he rushes in to get a drink. 

At first, I was pretty confused by the meowing but then it dawned on me: whenever I’m in the bathroom, Iroh hears the sound of me “making water” and thinks I’m filling up his water dish. He gets excited to have “fresh water” so he comes and meows outside the bathroom. 

All of this makes me think one thing: I have a weird kitty.