"Ah-ha, he really is a cat," I shouted. "He's a plastic addict just like Kato and Clouseau." Kato and Clouseau are the two Himalayan headcases we inherited from Amy's sister.

She gave them to us after she became wildly allergic when they started shedding fur faster than Jennifer Lopez at a PETA convention. The Himalayans are fussy, standoffish, preening little Ewoks we should have named Zsa Zsa and Eva even though they're allegedly males. They arrived with a long list of annoying habits, but their obsession with chewing anything plastic is near the top of the list.

If you're tearing the confounded plastic wrap off a new compact disc or a package of crackers, Clouseau will jerk awake from his daily kitty coma on the couch and come running to beg you to let him puncture the edges of the plastic with his fangs. You have to hold the plastic with both hands or he'll snatch it away, run under the bed and eat it. And, boy, oh, boy, you don't want to know what happens if he does ingest a piece.

Let's just say it's not part of a healthy fiber diet. When Amy brings wrapped bouquets of flowers home, both cats circle her legs like junkies outside a methadon clinic begging for a bite, man, just one bite. Addiction is such a sad thing to witness.

One Christmas, before we fully comprehended the Himalayans' peculiar habit, we left our gifts under the tree on Christmas Eve, as is the custom with our people. The next day, every plastic bow on every box had been mangled, masticated and drooled upon until they were limp and unrecognizable as bows. Each Christmas since, we have to lock our gifts up like liquor bottles in a package store on the wrong side of town.

When Letharg-o made his move on the plastic, I decided to go online and find out why some cats go gonzo when you reach for a delicious pack of wrapped Toast Chee crackers. Here's what one expert at Foothill Felines had to say: "This is a difficult behavior to explain, and some cats are more prone to it than others. Most feline behaviorists have come to believe that some cats find a slight odor to the plastic and/or film surfaces simply irresistible, and also that the coolness and texture of the plastic and/or film must feel and taste good on the cat's tongue.

It may also be another form of trying to 'nurse' - sort of a feline 'oral compulsive' behavior." Who wants to nurse a cat? I have my own theory.

The crisp sound of plastic snapping while Clouseau or Kato does his hole-puncher routine sounds like tiny bones breaking. "Ah-ha, he really is a cat," I shouted.