Those poor, sad mittens

I've talked about The Mittens here before - a fuzzy chew toy that my cats have been using for years as a communication tool to show their distress at something. The Mittens move around the house while we are gone, sometimes appearing right in front of the door ("you were gone too long") and sometimes by the food dishes (obviously, "I was hungry and you weren't here to open a can!") or even on the bed ("I missed you") or under it ("there was a noise outside!")

Frik travels with his Mittens. They have been with him from Kentucky to Washington, and down and back from Arizona, twice. They go with him to the vet. He carries them around in his mouth when he thinks no one is looking, howling in a low, mournful tone as he wanders down the hall, and then drops them immediately when we notice him. "Mittens? I wasn't carrying the mittens. That would be silly and I am NOT a silly cat."

They were originally 'Christmas' mittens - red and white and 'seasonally decorated' and were supposed to be a gift for my mother's dog, Daisy, for an upcoming holiday. But Maddie fell in love with them as soon as they came home from the store and started dragging them off the bed where they were waiting, along with other things, to be packed up and sent. She wouldn't leave them alone. So the dog got another, larger, set, and these became a fixture at our house. It wasn't long before Frik saw (by then actually, he likely 'smelled') the attraction and took them over. (Maddie didn't care - she has a short attention span.)

He'd been devoted to them ever since. Many was the time we'd come home to find him sleeping with them, or woken up in the morning to find them draped on one of our pillows. They'd move from place to place on a daily basis, and their constantly shifting location was usually our only clue that they were being 'used' - it was rare to actually see one of the cats carrying them around.

And then we went on vacation a couple weeks ago. The cats were alone for 2 days before our house sitter came to stay with them. And she discovered the mittens inside one of the litter boxes, covered with stuff they shouldn't have been covered with, too far gone to avoid a washing.

Alas.

They'd never been washed before. They would have smelled different if washed, and we knew the smell was the biggest part of the attraction. They'd been a veritable beacon to our cats - come get me if you need me - all this time, and now they would smell of soap and softener instead of Maddie and Frik.

They haven't been touched since.