To be slightly glad my DC ('dear' cat) never came home...

[rolloverandshitmarsbars]

Light-hearted, but serious
Since she disappeared 8 months ago I have not had to:

-Cover the worktops, fridge and cupboards with sellotape every night to prevent her sleeping all over them. No cats on worktops.
-Remove all traces of water droplets from around sink - she would lap them. No cats on worktops!
-Keep bathroom door closed so she didn't sleep in the sink/bath.
-Be sad about the nose scratches that appeared weekly on my other cats.
-Close doors to stop her sleeping on the baby.
-Open doors slowly, leading with a foot to stop her rushing through, upstairs and under the bed so that I get to lie flat, wriggle under and drag her out shouting and squirming.
-Tape cardboard and old bits of carpet to the lower half of all the doors I had to close because she scratched and destroyed them.
-Close all windows, even upstairs because she could and would get through them so she could get under the bed, or sleep on the baby.
-Discover poo hoards.

Unsurprisingly I got used to not doing these things quite quickly. If she showed up now, I'd be a little cross quite frankly.

Don't worry, at first I was sad and spent weeks coordinating house checks within a 2 miles radius, 3am night walks to call for her and I stuck a picture of her on top of the fridge so I could tell her off.
But, when I think of the additional work she created and what I have saved buying sellotape, I am afraid I just don't want her back. Unreasonable?!

[MrsDavidBowie]

I have had a rescue cat for about 10 years , she' s about 12.
Yes I like her. I feed her, sporadically stuff her in a cat basket and take her to the vets.

She is making life a bit difficult at the moment by miawing at the bedroom window at 1am and waking me up.and has peed on the bathroom mat this week.
There is no way I would take a bullet for her as someone said upthread.She is a cat.

[BrianTheMole]

Take a bullet for the fooking cat? No way José!!

[RussianBlu]

A fair number of not very nice responses to the op. She was just being honest and it is pretty much impossible to train cats not to jump up on tables/work surfaces etc. It is also a complete nuisance to have a cat that destroys carpet around door ways etc.

I hear you op!!!

[Topaz25]

Some people use humour to deal with difficult situations, it doesn't mean the OP doesn't care about her cat. OTOH pet loss is a sensitive subject. This post reminded me of our cat Jamie. We adopted her and her brother and sister as kittens, they'd been born on the streets so were semi feral. Several months later she was starting to come around and spending time with us but then she somehow managed to get out and of course given her history went off like a shot. We looked for her everywhere but never saw her again. We still have her brother and sister, who have bonded with us and are happy family pets. Jamie wasn't always easy to get along with but I miss her a lot. I hope against hope she is still out there somewhere and has found another home or joined a feral colony, even though I know it's unlikely. For some people, pets are part of the family.

[SelectAUserName]

OP, I think you just misjudged the tone of your post. I think if there had been even just a little more of "I loved her to bits despite..." and "If she walked back in now I wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry" rather than a litany of all her negatives, it might have gone down better.

I understand that guilty relief when a pet is no longer around and you don't have to do all the chores associated with it - in my case, when we lost our Labrador to cancer, in amongst the grief and sadness was an appreciation of being able to have a lie-in, not having to go out in the pissing rain, not having to keep an eye on the time while out shopping so that he wasn't left too long.

It lasted about two months until the need for the good experiences of dog ownership outweighed the bad, hence SelectASpaniel

[LisaMed]

Beastofburden welding gloves to hold evil cat down during an examination were at absolute necessity. She drew blood from old and battle hardened vets and ran rings around any newbies. It took two vetinary nurses and a vet to get a urine sample in the practice. After a while she was too frail to make the journey to the vet - boney growths on the spine as well as failing kidney - so the vet had to come to us every three months to check the meds were okay. I always bought chocolates. They were always justified.

Near the end when she was nothing but a furry bag of bones she still put up a spirited fight and it was never worth trying to get blood samples. It was only during the last week that she was too frail to declare total war on the vet and the vet was shocked.

I'm not sure sometimes whether I miss her or miss telling people what she had been up to and seeing their shocked expressions.