The War Against Plants

There are plans afoot to remove all greenery from my household.

Shrubbery, foliage and photosynthesis have been designated public enemy status.

There are those – the powers who have come to be – who are working hard to turn the green and pleasant land of my living room into a desert. The windowsills, once a tropical paradise courtesy of B&Q, are already denuded. Deforestation is occurring at such an alarming rate I am thinking of launching a campaign on Facebook and asking Bono to perform a charity gig.

Yes. It’s that bad.

Our kittens – now at the feline teenager stage – have taken it upon themselves to munch, push, kick, pounce, harass, eat and slash every single plant organism we own to the point of death. Their favourite tactic is to turn themselves into a feline ballista. They launch themselves at the curtains, climb up and then, when they have reached optimum height and can guarantee that, with the help of gravity they can reach terminal velocity, they re-sheath their claws and freefall onto whatever hapless spider plant is basking innocently beneath them.

Should the triffids ever attack their nemesis is right here.

Were I to let Missy and Kiah loose in Brazil I fear the loggers would soon be out of a job and the rain forests would be out of existence. They would see Kew Gardens as a bit of light lunch.

Nothing we can do seems to stop them. Our carpets have had so much soil deposited onto them I could throw down seed potatoes and grow a decent crop for Christmas.

We’ve tried shouting, tapping their little nosey-wosies gently, even removing them bodily from the room.

They laugh in our faces. Or rather they stare at us without blinking, ears back and then carry on their carnage like we don’t exist. This, as you all know, is the cat equivalent of laughing.

So we are down to mechanical warfare.

Weapons of war. Something with a trigger.

A weapon of mass inundation.

We have accepted that it is now necessary to spray our cats with water whenever they do something naughty.

I feel a bit uneasy about it. It feels too much like water-boarding but really the only other option is the electric chair... and despite their destructive mischievousness we love them both to bits and don’t want to stamp down too hard on their feline rights.

And who knows?

Should a jet of cold water to the mush work without too much psychological damage we may even try it on the kids...