Pandora's Litter Box: Pandora vs. Spoon

Last night Spoon was annoying Pandora by, well, just hanging out a little too close. She was growling at him, but he somehow interprets that as playtime. I picked up a long wand toy, mostly to tap Pandora on the butt and distract her so I didn't have to get off the couch and she was closest to me, but as soon as Spoon saw it flailing through the air, he ran right around her and started playing. Aw, poor boy, just had ants in his pants.

Anyway, I thought I'd do a side-by-side comparison of the two to give my reader (singular now, I'm starting to think) an idea of the extreme differences between the two.

	Pandora	Spoon
Origin	Showed up spontaneously as a kitten 17 years ago at Heather'n'Dave's	Adopted Sept 13, 2006 from the Pasadena Humane Society
Age	17½ calendar years	approx. 4½ calendar years (shelter records were approximate)
Size	Petite (8 pounds)	Plus size (16 pounds)
Fuzziness	50% fur by volume	Sleek but thick short hair
Smarts	Extremely smart.	Apparently, not very...
Bossiness (scale of 1 to 10)	11	3 (Pandora takes care of the food demands, so he mostly just wants some loving and playtime)
Reaction to vacuum cleaner	Doesn't care unless it's about 3 inches from her face. Then she usually just glares at it	Is halfway under the bed as soon as I take it out of the closet
Morning routine	Sleep next to human's pillow and start reciting the day's to-do list as soon as there's movement	Move up to cuddle for some morning love as soon as there's movement
Reaction to strangers	Yeah, whatever. Just don't touch the tail.	Tentative, but they're BFFs as soon as they're sitting on the couch.
Likelihood to insert self, unbidden, in the picture	Low to medium	Very high

An illustrative story: at some point last year, I was sitting on the couch knitting. I heard a rustling sound somewhere in the apartment, like one of the cats was attacking a paper bag. I ignored it. It stopped after a few minutes, but then after a short pause, it started coming closer. I looked up and Pandora was calmly standing in front of the couch with the raffia handle of a small paper sac looped over her neck and under one of her forelegs. She gave me a look as if to say, "You with the opposable thumbs, get this off, and don't you dare laugh." She sat patiently while I got her out of it, then sat down next to me. I left the bag on the floor in front of the couch and resumed my knitting.

A few minutes later, I heard the rustling sound again. I looked down and Spoon had put his head through one of the handles and looked panicked. I reached down to get it off, and he freaked out.

Pretty much par for the course...