This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

This cat loves to destroy my stuff.  His favorite thing to ruin:  plants.  I am a pretty lousy gardener, and I do not need his help killing off plants.  But he seems to think it's his duty to assist me in that task.

I have a slowly growing collection of mini cacti, all bought on various IKEA trips.  Two of them are smooth, one is fuzzy, and one is spiky.  And Apollo is fascinated by all of them.  Within 30 seconds of placing them on the window sill (the lone sunny spot in the apartment), he was up next to them to investigate.  Sniffing wasn't enough, because he proceeded to poke at, chew on, knock over, and wrestle with each of the cacti throughout the day.  Seriously, why would you bite a spikey cactus??  What part of sticking spines into your little mouth is a good idea?  And only my cat can get into a fight with a cactus.  And lose.  Squirting him with water did not stop him, nor did yelling, clapping by his ears, or grabbing him by the scruff and knocking him off the window sill.  To this day, each one still has its own battle scars and teeth marks, and all of them are missing varying amounts of soil.  He finally doesn't knock them over constantly, but it's still a weekly occurrence.

I also got a pretty curly bamboo plant.  I figured the maintenance for it is almost non-existent, so it would be hard for me to hurt it.  But no worries, Apollo stepped right up to the challenge. I placed it in the window, for lack of anywhere else to put it, and then left for an hour to run out to the store. Within that short amount of time, Apollo managed to bite into almost every leaf, and even completely destroy  several of the leaves by tearing them apart.  My bamboo looks like it has barely survived a small hurricane.  I now have to choose between leaving it in the window so it can actually get sun and have it be completely defoliated, or put it on a high shelf to keep it safe but unable to get much light.

I tried to do one thing.  All I wanted was something green and living and pretty in the window, and this cat just took over and decided that anything he can fit in his mouth is part of his own personal salad bar.

Apollo the mighty cactus ninja

My poor little bamboo stalk.  All the leaves are shredded or bitten into!