This scrawny, emaciated, struggling pussycat is… truly not fooling anyone.
This is actually Casper. He is a green-eyed, black and white floof pudding, and one of the stray cats that visits my balcony for food. Multiple times a day. Sometimes in the same hour.
He’s also a new star of a hot new video game.
Casper appeared in my neighbourhood just over one year ago, and started to visit my ground floor balcony to chow down the bowl of food I put out for stray cats.
At that time, Norah (my rescued calico moggy) was still living a partly indoor / outdoor life, and I’d fitted a panel with cat flap into the patio doors so that she could come and go as she pleased. I’d then set up a webcam directed at her food bowl, so I could check that she was safely returning from her wild walks while I was away at work.
NOT MY CAT.
One afternoon, the webcam app alerted me to new motion and I checked the feed.
My apartment.
My food bowls.
NOT MY CAT!
Brazen Casper had sauntered right into the house and quaffed down the food in Norah’s bowl! He’d later try these antics after I’d gone to bed, and I’d hear him first meow for Norah, before becoming distracted by food.
I was pretty astonished by this development, as I would have thought a stray cat would be too wary to come inside. Especially when there was a supply of food in easier reach on the balcony. Yet after a year of watching him, I’ve no evidence that Casper isn’t a stray.
Regardless, I put my surprise aside. And took Casper’s balls.
My hospitality is big indeed when it comes to cats, but there is some SERIOUS ACCOMPANYING SMALL PRINT. Especially when it involves an unneutered male close to soft furnishings[*].
I’d put the trap down on my balcony, and watched through my outdoor webcam as Casper stepped inside to munch on the tray of food at the far end. As his paw pressed down on the trap’s raised plate, the door swung shut.
Casper in the trap and less than thrilled!
This was a lot easier than trapping stray cats in the neighbourhood streets, where I’d previously had to contend with curious passers-by and their dogs while trying to remember the word for “animal rescue” in Japanese. Here, I could just make a cup of tea and wait like an evil villain in my computerised layer as all doctorate degree holders were born to do.
Fortunately for Casper, I delegated the task of de-balling to an expert. Transferred to a carrier, we trundled down to my favourite vet (roping in Selena again for translation help) for TNR: Trap, Neuter, Return. Once neutered and vaccinated, I released Casper in the stretch of grass outside my apartment. I assumed he would disappear in a huff for some weeks, and then (hopefully) return for the food.
Based on the photos on my twitter feed, the huff lasted a few hours. And he walked right back in the house again.
I had hoped that given his (metaphorical, if now virtual) balls of steel, I might be able to socialise Casper and bring him properly indoors. However, I had two big problems.
The first was that I wanted to bring Norah indoors full time. In order to do this, I needed to close the catio so she could not escape. The catio is a make-shift enclosure that covers half my balcony, made up of a billion and one mesh panels I bought at Daiso (similar to a pound store) and tied together with zip ties. It’s not a bad construction for a theoretical physicist!
But closing the catio did mean that Casper could no longer enter the apartment. Since I had recorded Norah lying in wait and then chasing his furry backside outdoors, this wasn’t perhaps entirely unwelcome! But it did mean that Casper couldn’t get familiar with indoor life on his own terms.
Norah is DONE with Casper’s crap.
The second issue was that Casper has flour for brains. Now that I think on it, this might explain why he strolls into random human houses.
I attempted to woo Casper by gently lobbing a meaty treat in his direction when I saw him close to the balcony. But he took this as a violent assault, and has since fled every time he’s even caught sight of me through the window. That one act trashed our relationship more thoroughly than the entire multi-day TNR episode.
Casper even returned after a few minutes post that terrible attack to find said meaty treat and devour it. But the connection was not made.
On the one hand, I’m disappointed that I’ve not been able to convince Casper of my good intentions. But it’s also true that socialising older outdoor strays is difficult, and many never become comfortable with an indoor life. So Casper uses my balcony as a B&B. Where both the “B”s stand for “all day breakfast” and he single handedly justifies my Costco membership card.
A cat of… noble bulk… Casper’s regular arrival is heralded by the “thunk” as he jumps onto the balcony rail. A second boink follows as he drops down to the balcony floor, eats, and then jumps onto the air conditioning unit, onto the laundry poles, back onto the balcony rail and off into the surrounding grass. It’s an impressive feat that periodically spells disaster for the webcam, which can get flattened during this gladiator obstacle course and end up upside down in the gutter with its memory card occasional evidence to the abuse.
The qualifying final leap to fame (and webcam doom).
It was the video of one such recorded episode that I put on the social media platform, Mastodon, and began Casper’s exponential climb to fame.
The clip was seen by David Fox, a computer game developer who is currently working on a virtual reality version of his game “Rube Works”. The game is already released for smartphone and PC, and involves the player reconstructing the crazy cartoon gadgets of Rube Goldberg, which were published in the late 1920s and 1930s. Rube Goldberg machines have inspired similar inventions that achieve simple tasks in a quite ridiculously complex way, such as those designed by Wallace in “Wallace and Gromit”.
Knowing that I loved virtual reality, David had invited me to test the Beta of the VR version of Rube Works, and I’d worked my way through five of the currently available six levels based on Goldberg’s original works. Chicken tears had powered automatic turkey slicing, a flea stinging a dog has opened garage doors, and a monkey was involved in an equally unfortunate endeavour to close a window.
Upon viewing the obstacle course antics of Casper, David jokingly noted that Casper himself was clearly ready for a Rube Goldberg adventure. I had chuckled and agreed this seemed to be his calling.
A short while later, David announced an update to the Beta and said I particularly should check it out.
THE CAT IN SCENE SIX HAS NOW BEEN NAMED CASPER!
This rascuely, flour-for-brains, beef bowl is now a named character in a gamified version of the world’s most famous ridiculous inventions. It’s hilarious and I chuckle every time I think about it.
I put down a special meaty bowl for Casper for him to celebrate his new fame. He stuffed his face and then knocked over my webcam again.
Celebs, man. What you gonna do?
[*] I’ll leave it open for you to decide if I’m still talking about cats.