Cats

All of my adult life I have had multiple cats in the house or yard.  In the cat person-dog person dichotomy, I am a cat person. 

Back when I was trying to teach semi-literate welfare moms how to write a five-paragraph essay, I would always start with the topic "What's better, a cat, or a dog, and Why"  Everyone has an opinion on this, so it was the best topic I ever came up with.  It's not a five-paragraph essay, but here are my pro-cat arguments.

Although all pets make messes, cat's are instinctively pre-house trained.  Place a cat in the litter box, and boom, house trained.  Cats clean themselves and thus smell good with no effort required by the human.  Cats are emotionally self-sufficient, but they have a sense to come lay with you when you want them to.  Cats do hilariously stupid things and then shake it off.  Cats are acrobatic.  Cats are aesthetic to watch and hang out with.  Where dogs bounce around licking and barking, cats walk like the silent killers that they are.  Cats keep rodents and bugs at bay.  For some reason, cats like me, and I'm good at making them do what I want them to.

Over the years, I've had many cats, but two or three stick out in my mind.  One back in undergrad was named Chicken Frank.  He once climbed on the railing of our back deck and grabbed a raw steak the rich frat boys next door were going to put on the grill.  He stole it and brought it back to our side.  I thought that was so cool, I cut it up so he could eat it.  Being too poor in those days for vet visits, we never had Chicken Frank fixe, so he sired a couple of litters.  They were free to come and go.  I left food and water for them, but all of them, when they grew up, Chicken Frank included, decided to eventually strike out on their own.

Another cat was named My Cat if I was referring to it and Your Cat if anyone else referred to it.  I had her for probably eight or nine years.  She had one litter before we got her fixed, and we did the right thing and gave the kittens to loving homes.  While in business school she started hanging out at the neighbor's house across the street a lot to get away from the cat I'm about to discuss.  The neighbors fell in love with her, and she seemed happy with them.  So when they moved, after some socially awkward conversation, we let them take her.

The best cat I ever had is the one that eventually ran off My Cat.  We had been hearing quiet mews coming from somewhere for a couple of days.  We looked around but never found anything.  Then one night while the two cats we had were eating we noticed that this kitten had walked in and was standing in the kitchen watching our two cats eat.  When they were done, she walked over and started eating.  Then she started farting, so I named her Toot. (that's what this little boy I babysat called it)  When she went into heat about a week later, we realized she was not a kitten, but a miniature cat.  We got her fixed pronto.  I had her for about 12 years.  With a string and something tied to the end of it, I could get her to jump acrobatically to almost the level of my head at will.  She understood a couple of voice commands.  She would come to you if you said her name aloud.  If she was in your lap and you said up, up she would jump down without any further prompting.  She also had a good sense of when I was feeling bad and would come lay on me.  She traveled well.  She would be relaxed in a car for hours, and in a motel room she would hide silently under the covers.  If I kept her litter box reasonably clean, she would always use it.  She would never pee outside the box, but if it got too full she would shit next to to the box, but that was my fault, not hers.  She was fastidiously clean and soft and always smelled good.  As she got older, her teeth started falling out until of her four main hunting teeth, she only had one left.  I wanted to change her name to Tooth.  She was my favorite cat of all time.  Not long after the divorce from my ex, when ideas about Phase Two began to come together, I gave Toot to her.  She's an old kitty, and even though my ex is furious with me for multiple reasons, I assume she would have the decency to tell me if Toot died, so I assume she's still alive.