In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats
June 3, 2017 9:44 PM   Subscribe

Ever woke up to strange noises downstairs? Or heard a foreign meowing sound outside your window? Oh, it's just a cat. Wait, you're saying you don't have a cat? Well, guess what? Now you do.
posted by Johnny Wallflower (84 comments total) 28 users marked this as a favorite
 
"He followed me home! Can I keep him????"

Yeah, that's how it happens sometimes...
posted by HuronBob at 9:49 PM on June 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


oh, #28 is a baby bobcat! (Bobkitten? No, that is silly.)

I think volunteer cats are the best kind of cats.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:50 PM on June 3, 2017 [5 favorites]


This guy wandered into my apartment building about six months ago, must have followed someone in. I picked him up in the stairwell and kept him in my bathroom "just for the night." You'll never believe what happened next!

(He's sleeping on my lap right now.)
posted by AFABulous at 9:51 PM on June 3, 2017 [54 favorites]


Get Guy Ritchie's casting bloke on the blower, we need to tell him about Popeye.
posted by adept256 at 9:57 PM on June 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


Our cat is named Porchy because he showed up on our porch one night thin and covered in fleas. ( He is orange so his full name is Sir Porchester of Orange.) No one claimed him so what could we do? When they claim you, you're sunk.
posted by emjaybee at 10:07 PM on June 3, 2017 [25 favorites]


You don't "have a cat". A cat "has you".
posted by Samizdata at 10:07 PM on June 3, 2017 [13 favorites]


I had a similar exerience to AFABulous. One of my cats woke me up from an afternoon nap, some kind of ruckus caused by another cat on the outside ledge of "his" window. I get up and remove my cat from the inside window ledge, go to other room, sit on computer chair, which is by window. Outside cat hops up into this window now, meows cutely at me. Still groggy, I wander outside to see if maybe outside cat needs inside, may have moved in with new tennants somewhere in the building? so ok, go outside. Cat acts like it wants in the building. so sure, come on in cat, you seem to know where you're going. walk in after cat. Cat turns around and looks at me, meows cutely. I'm like "ok so see ya later?".. Cat looks up at me cutely, meows. I go to open my apartment door. Cat is like "oh is this where I live now?". Put cat in bathroom. long story short -- cat adopted me.

What i'm saying is that this sounds like a common cat M.O.. a grift... be wary of cats who act like they belong inside your building is what i'm saying, lest you become adopted by cat!
posted by some loser at 10:33 PM on June 3, 2017 [31 favorites]


also,

Sir Porchester of Orange

LOVE IT!
posted by some loser at 10:34 PM on June 3, 2017 [12 favorites]


Meet Fred. Fred is the neighborhood extermination specialist, so as a city contractor, he's welcome at all households.
His reported residence is a few houses down with his black and tuxedo roommates, but if you've got a rodent problem, he's available on commission. Good Fred! Get that squirrel!
posted by TrishaU at 10:46 PM on June 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


I feel like a failure of a cat mama because one of my guys just picked up and moved in with another family, right across the street. That was an awkward convo with a neighbor I hadn't even met yet : /

He still comes to visit us sometimes, and they seem to like him, so all is cool, I guess.
posted by thebrokedown at 10:57 PM on June 3, 2017 [12 favorites]


My aunt thought she had a cat, that she thought was an outdoor barn cat. The cat lived to be 20 IIRC. My aunt found out the cat was ill when she got a call from a neighbor "(your cat) is having trouble getting out of his chair, he might need to go to the vet". Apparently the cat my aunt had thought was hers had bailed on the 'outdoor' and 'barn cat' aspects of the lifestyle some years ago, and was living with a neighbor in more convivial circumstances. He still ate the food from my aunt, and came round to visit often enough to make sure it was put out though.
posted by Grimgrin at 11:00 PM on June 3, 2017 [27 favorites]


I kind of want this to happen to me someday.
posted by limeonaire at 11:05 PM on June 3, 2017 [7 favorites]


A white cat named "Frank" was the most gregarious cat I ever knew.

We had a cat ramp going up to our second-floor balcony, which had a cat door into our living room. The master bedroom was downstairs.

Frank would climb up the ramp, march right into our apartment, and head down to the master bedroom in the middle of the night. He would jump on the bed and meow furiously until you woke up and paid him attention. I once engaged him with a toy, and he went absolutely bonkers for it.

I know his name was Frank because he had a tag with his name on it. The tag also had a phone number. I called the number one day to tell Frank's "owner" about his escapades into our apartment, and to make sure he wasn't seriously lost.

The woman on the other end had a horrible speech impediment. I couldn't understand a word she said, except for "Frank". It was just like the Peanuts adults' voices: "Wa wa wahwah wa FRANK wah wah waa FRANK," and so on.

So I never did find out exactly what the deal was with Frank. That was a long time ago, and we moved away soon after, but I think about him often.
posted by mikeand1 at 11:48 PM on June 3, 2017 [9 favorites]


We have a friend who is a dog person. "Dogs!" she would say. "I am all about dogs!" And then a cat showed up at her house and the next thing we knew she was asking facebook how to install a cat door.

We have another friend - she lives downstairs - who is a magical cat whisperer. I think four or possibly even five of her cats were all strays/ferals who saw an easy mark the love and care she has to offer and moved right in. Hurley, (named because of his habit of hurling himself at her window), her first stray adoptee, just went to the big cat heaven in the sky, which is surely exactly like the big cat heaven he just left here on Earth.

.

For Hurley. The sweetest cat, who had a sweet, sweet life with our friend.
posted by rtha at 11:55 PM on June 3, 2017 [42 favorites]


A friend of mine is also a cat whisperer, or possibly some kind of witch. She never has a cat of her own, but every time she moves to a new place she'll entice a neighbourhood cat into her lair, and ply it with treats until it gives up on its prior owner. Eventually she moves on, presumably leaving a trail of disgruntled cats in her wake.
posted by threecheesetrees at 12:04 AM on June 4, 2017 [5 favorites]


> For Hurley. The sweetest cat, who had a sweet, sweet life with our friend.

.

Hurley was a good cat.
posted by mrzarquon at 12:10 AM on June 4, 2017 [6 favorites]


This is my dog's worst nightmare.
posted by fshgrl at 12:18 AM on June 4, 2017 [8 favorites]


#5: "Hey, who emptied out a bag of cats at my door?"
posted by acb at 12:24 AM on June 4, 2017 [3 favorites]


I like this story - like, if the door was unlocked it would all make perfect sense?
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 12:28 AM on June 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm forced to wonder if all these people are English-as-a-second language learners. They seem to have problems with the past tense.

The correct conjugation is "didn't" rather than "don't". "I woke up this morning to this scene. I didn't own a cat."
posted by jacquilynne at 2:16 AM on June 4, 2017 [13 favorites]


Pro tip: don't drink nighty-night tea with catnip when you live in a top-floor flat with roof access.
posted by Namlit at 4:27 AM on June 4, 2017 [5 favorites]


When I was about 14 a tiny, half starved little kitty showed up at our house. My mom was adamant that we were not getting another cat (we already had one and two dogs.) Well, one day my uncle and I were alone at the house while a blizzard was raging outside. And the poor little kitty just sat outside the sliding glass door looking at us. Not making a sound. Barely moving. Just looking...

My uncle and I looked at each other and pretty much simultaneously said, "god damn it," then let the cat in. You could see her ribs and spine. It was awful.

Anyway, when my mom got home: "Don't get attached. Don't name it. We're not keeping it." So we just called her "Kitty." For the next 12 years or so...
posted by Mister_Sleight_of_Hand at 4:45 AM on June 4, 2017 [60 favorites]


Yeah, most of the cats I've had in my life, including childhood cats, have been of the just-show-up-and-start-being-your-cat variety.

That's how I ended up with a female cat named Steve; she had been living on my porch and had started responding to the name long before I got a good look at the relevant anatomical bits. From the front, she just looked like a Steve.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:46 AM on June 4, 2017 [9 favorites]


So we just called her "Kitty." For the next 12 years or so...

That's okay, we gave my cat two different names in the first couple of weeks we had her and we still basically all called her Kitty for the next 20 years. It happens.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:50 AM on June 4, 2017


The best surprise cat story I know, though, is the day two kittens fell through my mother's ceiling and into her arms, one at a time. I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. The mother cat must have stashed them in the space between the ceiling and the roof.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:54 AM on June 4, 2017 [38 favorites]


Our cat, Dr. Cat, pulled a really sophisticated con - she had showed up in our backyard hunting mice, and we'd started feeding her since she was so skinny. She was very friendly, so one day I thought, "I'll see if I can pick her up", and I did, and she went to sleep in my arms.

"We must adopt her immediately!" I told everyone, and we did.

It's seven years later. She's never let me pick her up without squirming and wailing, and she simply won't be held.
posted by Frowner at 5:27 AM on June 4, 2017 [68 favorites]


Also, she just came in to get me out of bed - not for food, she had food in her dish. And not for snuggles - she's gone to do cat things. It's just inappropriate that I keep sleeping past seven.
posted by Frowner at 5:28 AM on June 4, 2017 [28 favorites]


What *is* it with Metafilter and cats/dogs anecdotes?! Do you have to Voight-Kampf me into going and paying her even more attention every time?! (rescue stray with bad allergies and a broken miaow)
posted by Molesome at 5:39 AM on June 4, 2017 [7 favorites]


This is how my family acquired was acquired by our first cat, too: he was the younger of the neighbor's two cats, and clearly felt put upon. One day, he came over to play in our yard, and decided this was way better than his current situation--so he simply moved in. (His judgment about the then-current situation turned out to be correct: when we asked the neighbors if we could keep him, they shrugged and said, "sure, we were going to take him to the pound.")
posted by thomas j wise at 5:39 AM on June 4, 2017 [4 favorites]


I kind of want this to happen to me someday.

Apparently the trick is to break into a stranger's house while they are asleep, and let them wake up to find you snuggled up with them in their bed looking cute. Staring through their windows seems to work as well, if you are having trouble breaking in.

My parents had a cat that was getting fatter and fatter, but not eating his food. They finally figured out that he had suckered three elderly households on the street into thinking he was "theirs," and they were all feeding him gourmet canned food instead of the dry kibbles available at home. He still came home to sleep, but did all of his eating elsewhere.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:45 AM on June 4, 2017 [15 favorites]


oh, #28 is a baby bobcat! (Bobkitten? No, that is silly.)


Bobbie cat
posted by tilde at 5:52 AM on June 4, 2017 [5 favorites]


Did someone say neighbor cats?

The lady who lives in the apartment next to mine has a beautiful marbled tabby named Titi (actually a male, didn't know it at the time, heh). Titi tried to move in with me on the third or fourth day I was in my apartment. He seemed pretty well-fed though, so I sent him on his way and figured if he tried moving in a second time, I'd consider it. Later I saw him with his real human, so that was good. He still chats with me on the regular and especially enjoys pranking me with howls and wails while up his favorite tree. A tree I've seen him scramble down nimbly.

Then there's Miss Neighbor Maine Coon in Nice, chatty and friendly. A black neighbor cat and a pretty tabby who cross paths often, and the local neighbor cat street gang.

Also have a neighbor hedgehog (that is in fact my neighbor's garden), neighbor ducks, neighbor geese, and the occasional neighbor stork. All thanks to living near the Seine.
posted by fraula at 6:16 AM on June 4, 2017 [15 favorites]


Sometimes a cat won't adopt a human or a household, but an entire maritime museum.
posted by delfin at 6:23 AM on June 4, 2017 [8 favorites]


So about a decade ago I went to the Humane Society to pick out my very first cat.

Heh. Right.

The cat room was three walls' worth of plexiglass-fronted cages, each of which contained a very pissed-off looking feline, cowering as far from me as possible.

Except Meg. Meg took one look at me and started rubbing herself against the glass. When the volunteer opened the cage, she literally jumped into my arms and started purring. I had been chosen, and that was that.
posted by MrVisible at 7:58 AM on June 4, 2017 [37 favorites]




Same experience as MrVisible. twice

When we went to the shelter for our first cat, there was a wall of mostly dormant, resigned cats, and one big orange and white guy rubbing repeatedly against the bars, making eye contact, and meowing.

We asked to see that one in the visit room, and the attendent said "... oh, him...". We should have picked up on that. Anyway he was decently social and obviously healthy, so we said yes. On the way home, he managed to claw the cardboard carrier apart. Warning #2.

Anyway, he was by turns cuddly, playful and defiant. If I scolded him for something, he was likely to give me a swat as soon as I turned away. He was death on furniture and a bit clumsy too.

We had a major bonding incident in that he cut his foot one day (the very day we went to look at the house we eventually bought). The vets did a magnificent job sewing it up. When we went to pick him up, he damn near killed the poor vet assistant. I had to take him out of the cage. We had to change the bandage every day and pump hydrogen peroxide through a drain in the wound. He yowled... but he let us do it, and he made a full recovery. Destroyed a couch in celebration. And lived 15 more years.

When we went looking for the next cat, I wanted another big tom. My wife spotted a small, demure calico girly cat, she picked it up, and it immediately snuggled and purred. Sold. that cat initially didn't like males so she was skittish with me for a good 3 years... but ultimately my wife conceded that Penny had become 'my' cat since I worked from home and she spent most of the day curled up on my desk beside my laptop. She wasn't always interested in being 'on' us, but she always had to be near us. We liked to say she was a good 'hang'.

Penny developed a thyroid condition and diabetes, but we were able to manage with special food and twice daily insulin injections. People wondered why we bothered. I don't think I have to explain here, right?

Anyway, we finally had to send her to that Big Lap in the sky just a week ago. This explains my verbosity.

Waiting til the fall til we consider another cat. (unless one adopts us) Statistically speaking, the next cat could outlive us.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:30 AM on June 4, 2017 [51 favorites]


So about 15 years ago, my friend J. was living in a second-floor apartment. He came home one day to find a cat had somehow broken in. He was nonplussed, because how did the cat get up there? He wasn't up for having a cat due to work and allergies, so he put the cat outside. A few days later, the cat broke in again. He put the cat outside again. And then he went out of town for a few days, and decided that if the cat had broken in again while he was out of town, he would just adopt it.

He named his new buddy Oliver, acclimated enough to keep his allergies under control, and they were together for several years until Oliver passed. He acclimated very well to being a housecat and was likely a homeless pet rather than a feral cat. Despite his good adjustment to living with my friend, he would always eat absolutely all the food available because he never got past the psychological strains of having been hungry. We used to joke that now that J. had Oliver, he was twice the cat he used to be.
posted by bile and syntax at 8:31 AM on June 4, 2017 [8 favorites]


My own cat adoptions have been slightly more formal - I'm minding my own business, think a little too loudly about adopting a cat, and someone grabs me and gives me one, often with various cat accoutrements and occasionally with money for their support.

Here is my sweet old lady Zatanna, my huge cat Rembrandt, and my new guy Stitch.
posted by bile and syntax at 8:35 AM on June 4, 2017 [10 favorites]


My first kitty; I had just moved to the big city, in a new state, where I didn't know anyone, and a blizzard hit. In an area where it doesn't often snow. I went outside, because white stuff was falling from the sky, and who knew that could happen? And curled up beside the outdoor part of the heating unit, was a frozen momma cat and 4 frozen kittens. Only the runt of the litter survived, and I loved that cat like I've loved very few things. He traveled across the country with me multiple times, he lived so long he knew my teenage marriage starter husband, and the grown up real marriage husband, to whom I've been married for over 20 years. He was my baby until about a week before my son was born, and then one night, at about 25 years old, he just fell asleep on my belly, and stayed asleep.

I still miss that giant orange baby.

Right now, I have twin tuxedos that adopted me by climbing my dress like it was a tree, and perching on my shoulders like two sides of my conscience. They're pretty awesome.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 9:13 AM on June 4, 2017 [46 favorites]


I haven't sought out a kitty to adopt in the last 20 years. The best cats seek me out, whether they're a Siamese wandering the neighborhood in 1998, or when I buy a house in 2011 and the owner leaves his two wonderful kitties behind (Marcus and Mo-Mo)
posted by porn in the woods at 9:40 AM on June 4, 2017 [4 favorites]


A few years ago, when my partner and I had three kids (instead of the four we have now), we went to the Humane Society to get kittens. Kittens are always two-for-one at the Humane Society, so we knew we were getting two.

The problem was that, within a minute or two of being in the kitten room, each of the kids had bonded with a separate kitten.

I went out to fetch an adoption counselor. I told her, "We're here to get two kittens, but our three kids have connected with three different kittens. I need you to help me steer them toward two kittens only."

She says, "Sure, yeah, I can do that."

She and I walk into the kitten room together, where my three kids are each nose-to-nose with a kitten.

She turns to me and says, "If you take all three, I'll give you a discount on the adoption fee for the third one."

Traitor.

Anyway, we've been very happy with the three cats. The kids chose very well.
posted by Orlop at 9:40 AM on June 4, 2017 [28 favorites]


#9 - Easy enough to tell which came first, the couch or the cat?

Sunshine adopted me back in Tucson. I was spending a lot of late nights on the porch listening to Super Furry Animals and she would waltz in on the backyard wall, from the house across the street I think my landlord told me, and just hang out for a while. Affectionate and social but she's always hated to be picked up or held at all. She does tolerate my serenading/yowling though.

It was coming up on summer and already hot so I started putting water out for her. One night my friend was over when Sunshine showed up, looking gaunt. Friend insisted I start leaving food out with the water, and the visits became regular mornings and evenings. She started coming inside for a while too. I noticed she was gaining some weight, and looking healthier, and I was happy. That night I got home from work and smartly locked my keys in my truck. Pudgier Sunshine twining between my legs, I knocked on my landlord's door to ask for the spare. When she came back with the key and saw Sunshine she said Your cat's pregnant.

Sure enough Sunshine came in that night and went directly to the door of my closet and stared at the bottom cubby. The next week I had a litter of three kittens and a Sunshine completely take over my life. Some friends eventually took two, but the littlest kitten stayed and that's Abbey (of several names, yes, Baby, Kitten, Leetellest Kitten, etc.)
posted by carsonb at 9:46 AM on June 4, 2017 [17 favorites]


Our Gerald was living in the bushes outside my office, subsisting on rodents and lizards, until one afternoon when I sat down on a bench and he jumped up and curled into my lap as though we'd been friends forever. (Here he is the day I brought him home, and here's his beautiful spoiled self now.)

One day last fall, he came home from adventuring with a strip of paper taped around his neck (we can't keep a collar on him). It said, "This sweet kitty has been visiting our home. Does she/he belong to you? Please call XXX-XXX-XXXX." His attempt at securing a second family took him up the street and around the corner, and now his other mother and I have each other on speed dial so I can call him home when he gets in scuffles with the cats on her street. I've also found him rolling on the sidewalk across the street from our house, shamelessly flirting with the little girls who live there. But we're still his favorite - the place he comes home to at night or when it's raining, with the 80 lb dog he loves to snuggle with. I swear his affection is still tinged with gratitude for saving him from the bushes, so I'm happy to share him.

Also, are we going to give Johnny Wallflower his own section on the sidebar or what?? Good stuff.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 10:54 AM on June 4, 2017 [19 favorites]


oh, #28 is a baby bobcat! (Bobkitten? No, that is silly.)

Definitely bobkitten. I know because one of our cats looked like that when she was a baby and my wife called her a bobkitten, and she's never wrong.
posted by madcaptenor at 10:56 AM on June 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


BOBKITTEN
posted by supermedusa at 11:27 AM on June 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


A year ago my beautiful barn kitty who had adopted me AND my babies was hit by a car. I cried for eight solid hours, through driving carpool, acquiring a shovel on the way home, taking a paw print and then burying him under the tree in the back yard, and the six hours after that until I picked my kids up again.

We cried together and I told my boys that when our hearts were ready, a new kitty would find us just like Thunder had

(And privately I was calculating how to make Future Kitty an entirely indoor cat in a house with three allergic people).

A month and a half later, after finishing up our summer travels, I woke up one morning and thought "today would be a good day to find a kitten." I decided to call in the neighborhood cat lady that had been Thunder's first owner and see if she had any cats that needed a home. She wasn't there when I drove by, so I continued on to the grocery store, where I ran into her in the pet aisle. She was on the phone, so I waited before interrupting her, and as I stood aside my phone rang.

"Can you stop by here on your way home" My ex asked. "I have a surprise."

Neighbor lady finished her call and I inquired about kittens and she said she had a darling little tuxedo that would be perfect. We agreed to meet up in two days, and I drove to the ex's house, where he handed me a cardboard box with a tiny black and white kitten inside. I sent neighbor lady a picture and she said "that's the one!" And that's how we met Smoky Barnable.

Two days later I saw a sign outside a farmhouse that said "FREE KITTENS!!" and I stopped and Reeny Applesauce climbed into my arms and began to purr.

So now I have two wonderful indoor cats and a prescription for antihistamines.
posted by annathea at 11:45 AM on June 4, 2017 [25 favorites]


This joker showed up outside my flat last August. He was about 10 weeks old, I think, and it was storming and the wind was screaming outside, so he must have come up our portico to my 2nd floor flat to get away. He was crying outside, and I had two cats that I didn't want to get into a scrap if I opened the door, so I was just inclined to let him sit and meow for a little while...but he kept crying pitifully and after about an hour I caved like a sheet of wet tracing paper and found him. I stuck out my hand and tried to call "poes, poes" (Dutch for kitty-kitty) and thankfully my pronunciation must not have been too awful because he trotted right over and came in the house and started purring. Locked my boys in half the apartment to sulk, set out a litterpan for Unnamed Strange Kitty, and he promptly ran to it and did his thing, which led me to believe that he was an escaped housepet. So I put up signs in the neighborhood and grocery store, put a posting on the local animal shelter's lost and found page, and waited. Certain I'd get a call within a few days. He was too sweet and cute, and too well house-trained, to not be a family pet. I held off on naming him, but after a week of calling him "cat" I had to give in. Every time the door was shut and I was with my cats, and he was all alone, before he was cleared for mingling, he would cry, singing me the saddest song of his people, so I named him Guus Miauwis, after a nice-yet-very-sappy singer, Guus Meeuwis.

Nobody ever called, and that's how Guus got stuck with his bad joke name, and got a home. Eventually, he fit right in. I think the only explanation for his immediate housecat-training must be that he was part of a litter that got kicked out as soon as they were old enough, but I hate to think of anyone throwing him away so I tell myself he just was born with impeccable manners.

And, I kid you not, after I'd finally given up on anyone ever calling, and the shelter asked if they could take the posting down, Guus Meeuwis came on the radio and Guus jumped on the back of the chair where I was sitting and meowed along the whole song. He jumped down and has never done it again, but I like to think it was kittycat for "Okay, fine, I'm adopting you."
posted by sldownard at 12:59 PM on June 4, 2017 [17 favorites]


I'm a hospice nurse, we find homes for patients' pets sometimes if they need help with that. I met Dude the magical cat at a home visit and we shared a moment that felt a little like love at first sight. It turned that everyone loved Dude and there were many offers from family and friends to take him when the time came so he wasn't going to be one of those pets who needed help with that. I happened to be on call the night that patient died and I attended her death and the family shared with me that her sister was going to take Dude and I was a tiny bit sad and a lot bit happy that he had a loving home to go to. A month later I was standing outside the office of the volunteer coordinator who helps with rehoming pets and a call comes in and she pokes her head out and asks me if I'm interested in a cat, and I'm not at all, I'm full up, but something makes me ask her for the details. She tells me there was a patient who died and no one took her cat, and he's been living in her empty apartment getting visited and fed but mostly alone for the past month. Of course it was Dude, and of course I went and got him that night, and of course he actually turned out to be a she and I renamed her Petunia Daffodil Blueberry Rose Xenia Warrior Princess Buttercup, and of course I call her Beans instead and we lived happily ever after :)
posted by eggkeeper at 2:13 PM on June 4, 2017 [33 favorites]


At 2:30 AM one morning some years back, I was out in front of my house charging the battery of my old K5 Blazer, taking every possible precaution against noise for the sake of the neighbors, and when I turned around to go back to the car after unrolling the extension cord along the concrete path to the porch, there was a big raccoon sitting on the path between the lavender bushes which flank the steps down to the sidewalk, and completely filling that space.

I couldn't see its head or face very well because the porch light was off and it was backlit by the streetlight, but it was obviously very interested in me, and as it leaned forward with clear intent, I remember thinking 'oh well I've always wondered what it would be like to be attacked by a raccoon' and longing for the 15" box end wrench sitting on a table just inside the front door, but when it stood up its tail was undeniably feline, yet I still wasn't sure it was a housecat because it was so immense.

It was though, and it walked unconcernedly up the path and thrust its head forcefully against my legs. I couldn't touch it because of car gunk on my hands, so I mouthed a few friendly whispers in hopes of making it tarry for a bit and dashed inside to wash my hands and grab the heel of a pork roast we'd had for dinner earlier that week, and it was waiting patiently for me when I got back outside.

I spent the next half hour sitting on the step, rubbing it and covertly exploring it's incredible physique. It was fat, but it had a huge frame, and was actually even bigger than I thought because it had really short hair in a typical grey tabby pattern. My old black tom had been more than 20 pounds, and this cat was easily twice that. It had a very deep purr.

I finally tore myself away to connect the charger while the cat milled around on the parking strip, and as I bent forward to place the charger out of the way of the hood near the rear of the cavernous engine compartment, with my abdomen against the top of the radiator superstructure and my feet braced on the concrete of the street, the cat pushed against my legs again and knocked my feet out from under me, causing me to fall into the engine compartment and get a pretty good gash on my forehead from the hood hinge.

Next morning, my partner demanded to know what the hell I'd done to my head, and I said "cat, but it got away." God, I wanted that cat, but it was undoubtedly someone else's beloved pet. I was always thrilled whenever I saw it around the neighborhood over the next few years, though.
posted by jamjam at 2:14 PM on June 4, 2017 [12 favorites]


The neighbor cat in my last neighborhood was named Elvis and he would routinely follow me into my apartment, wander around, and then plonk down on the couch. There was no getting rid of him, either. We didn't even feed him! He just wanted to hang out.
posted by en forme de poire at 2:18 PM on June 4, 2017 [6 favorites]


A few years ago, when my partner and I had three kids (instead of the four we have now),

Anyway, we've been very happy with the three cats.


The moral of this story is that Orlop is short one kitten, and should be sought out by a homing cat at its earliest convenience.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:45 PM on June 4, 2017 [13 favorites]


My girlfriend lost her cat after 17 years and I eventually convinced her to start looking, since she was mopey without a cat to fuss over all day. We went to several rescues and shelters and she eventually came upon this little black kitten with cerebral hyperplasia--a mild case so he has balance issues but not severe--and as she stood in front of his cage, I could see her writing the story in hear head. The poor sad handicapped kitten no one would want but she'd save him. We at least went through the courtesy of looking at him in one of the little playrooms and the little ball of fluff and bones fell asleep on her arm. Singular arm because he was that tiny.

She of course tried to pretend her eyes weren't hearts but I was like "we are men of action, lies do not become us."

When we got him home and he turned out to be A VERY VOCAL KITTY THAT LIKES TO YELL ALL THE TIME, she was less than pleased, but I was amused. She was even less pleased when rather than the emo soul of a tortured poet, he has the soul of a sentient chainsaw or Tasmanian devil.

I had two cats of my own. Everything I'd read about integrating them was "so your hulking 20 pound boy cat that's pure muscle wants to eat the kitten," not "so your hulking 20 pound boy cat is terrified of 5 pounds of fluff and bone that is doing a Rebel Yell basically all the time."

When we were moving, I was using the bathroom in the hotel and he came strutting in and climbed into the shower stall and started hollering just to hear the sound of his own voice. I just started cracking up.

He is currently very angry and yelling because he cannot sit on top of the mirror. You can point out to him it's physically impossible for any cat to sit up there. He will just yell more.

Sometimes he relaxes by opening and closing his mouth like a basking shark to show all his teeth. The vet said he had too many teeth. I asked how she could tell since he's basically all teeth.

His primary love language is biting. If he really likes you, he'll chew on your hair.

God, I love that little weirdo.

She adores him but I think she's still a little disgruntled she didn't get her sad emo cat poet.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 3:14 PM on June 4, 2017 [33 favorites]


All five of my inside cats have a story....and two or three of the ones outside that I feed do as well. Some chose me; some weren't given a choice: Teddy, my Joe Cool of black cats, was supposed to visit for four months while his person was touring with a band. That was 17 1/2 years ago, and since Teddy was full grown when he arrived, he's close-to-if-not-already 19 years old. Irene and Bear both belonged to a neighbor who decided they didn't want them anymore; Lucie was abandoned in an apartment when her people got arrested (and were not coming back anytime soon).

But Jersey, well, she was discovered by my late dog Ally. One hot morning in July, as I walked Ally before work, she alerted that someone/something was under my car. I found the skinny little face of a kitten staring at me from the wheel well of my van. She had a cold, she was all skin and bones, and she couldn't smell the food I put in front of her. Poor thing had to put up with a bath and amoxicillin, but it's been 11 years now, and though she's a very small cat, she has a big personality.
posted by annieb at 4:04 PM on June 4, 2017 [9 favorites]


Since I seem to spend most of my time in Johnny Wallflower posts gushing about my two wonderful dog and shitting all over my wife's cat (because she is horrible and awful) (the cat, not the wife) I will now tell you about one of the cats Iactually enjoyed the company of. He was a neighborhood cat, names variously: Oreo, Tux or Blackie, but to me he was Chatty Cat. If he saw me puttering about the garage (as I did a lot in that time of unemployment) he'd waltz over, plop his fat ass down in a chair and mew loudly in a sing-song manner. Mew, mew. Mao, mao. Myrrh, myrrh. I am deathly allergic to cats, but as I enjoyed his company, if not his conversation, I would steal cat treats from inside the house to repay his time spent keeping me from being alone.

One fine fall evening, my wife and I were sitting on our back deck, enjoying libations. This deck overlooked a steep valley and was at least 15 feet above the backyard. We heard Chatty prowling around the backyard, then a sckrittering noise and Chatty's head popped up over the railing, still carrying on his repetitious conversation with no one. I picked him up and deposited him in the front yard, and went on with life. A week later we hear him again, this time we look over the railing to see what he's getting into, but alas, we don't see him anywhere, just hear him calling. Confused we begin the search and discover him on the roof, looking down at us. How he got there, I can't imagine, but we left him in place and saw him on terra firma not long after so I guess he got down just fine...

We left that neighborhood a few years back but every time I'm in the area, I swing thru and invariably see him sunning himself on the hood of someone's car or chasing chipmunks and squirrels. He's nobody's cat, but he rules a neighborhood and that all seems just fine to him.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 5:07 PM on June 4, 2017 [6 favorites]


The best surprise cat story I know, though, is the day two kittens fell through my mother's ceiling and into her arms, one at a time.

I feel really strongly that there's a joke in here about how if she requires more than one ceiling cat, she must be doing more than masturbating, but I just couldn't quite pull it together in a way that made it funny but not super offensive in case the poster didn't get the joke. And during that process, I looked up the Know Your Meme page about Ceiling Cat and discovered that people have known since 2010 that Ceiling Cat is actually in a wall, not a ceiling and my mind is completely blown. How could I have missed hearing that for 7 years?
posted by jacquilynne at 5:44 PM on June 4, 2017 [9 favorites]


Ghostride the Whip, my dear departed Melanie was a CH kitty, and she absolutely ruled the roost. She was A Fierce and Mighty Warrior Kitten with a tendency toward biteyness. You knew when her meow got up to four syllables, she meant business. She was the sweetest, cuddliest little marshmallow when she wanted to be, but she had to have her way.

(Also, she caught and killed a rat once, despite being completely blind.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:05 PM on June 4, 2017 [5 favorites]


I've written before on here about finding my current cat in the woods and deciding on a whim to just catnap him and take him home. I'm honestly not sure who chose who in that scenario - we had already decided to take him with us, and he just sat on the ground watching us while we packed up the car. I had been thinking about getting a cat but didn't know i was going to go from no cat to cat that day. I had to leave him in the bathroom while I ran out and bought literally everything, including what felt at the time like an overpriced, too-big cat carrier, in which he rattled around like a little bean. I remember asking if they had anything smaller, because have you seen how tiny kittens are?

He has of course now mostly outgrown it.
posted by janepanic at 7:21 PM on June 4, 2017 [5 favorites]


I'd just like to provide a community-spirited reminder that the more photos of MeFite cats and MeFite these-are-not-my-cats, the better. Show us these cats so we may admire them!

Also, for anyone who likes this kind of thing, both The Cat Reviewer and the #NotMyCat hashtag on Twitter are worth checking out.
posted by Lexica at 8:43 PM on June 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


I...attract cats. Always have. Siamese cats especially. These two were strays, taken in 10 years apart in opposite sides of town. The one in front (TNT, so named because he was so violent), came with his brother, also Siamese, but we lost him some years ago.

My wife had always been a dog girl, with a lifetime of Labradors under her belt. She now sleeps with a cat on her head.
posted by Cobalt at 9:25 PM on June 4, 2017 [3 favorites]


Ghostride The Whip, I have flagged your comment for not including a picture.
posted by AFABulous at 9:28 PM on June 4, 2017 [3 favorites]


Here is Yorvit, our CH cat (photo by mrzarquon), who we call wobblycat because... he wobbles. He'd been at the pound longer than he should've but now he is home, sleeping between my knees, and his adopted brother Roswell aka puppycat has me hemmed in on the left side. All hail CH kitties! (link to the fpp that introduced me to CH cats.)
posted by rtha at 9:41 PM on June 4, 2017 [4 favorites]


My spouse says he came back to his apartment one day and his neighbor down the hall said, "Careful! There's a vicious, vicious stray cat that's been hanging around your door!"

Spouse reached his door. On the doormat, a little black cat looked way up (Spouse is 6'4"), made eye contact for several seconds, and said, "Mew?"

Spouse opened his door. Cat went in like he owned the place, as indeed he did for the rest of his life.

My interpretation of that story is that Neighbor must have tried to pat or pick up Cat, and that Cat, having decided that Spouse was his destiny, must have hissed or clawed or in some other way communicated in no uncertain terms that nothing, nohow, was going to dislodge him from his chosen door.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 11:07 PM on June 4, 2017 [5 favorites]


How has no one asked "Okay, but the more relevant question is, did you already have an alligator?"
posted by DebetEsse at 11:59 PM on June 4, 2017 [6 favorites]


I am terribly sorry for my omission.

Here is Alexander Joseph Shitbird* the night of the hotel incident. I didn't even tell the whole story, which is that I was in the middle of creating achievements and hadn't quite shut the door the whole way. I see these two long, furry, black arms reach under the door and start scrabbling at it. He pries the door open. Then this scraggly black kitten with a Rooster Cogburn walk and look (he had an eye infection in one eye we were in the midst of treat) struts in and sits down like he owns the place. Then he sees the shower stall and climbs right in it and sits there going MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW as loud as his lungs will let him, seemingly just for the joy of making a racket. I was slain.

Like I said, his love language is biting. He is particularly fond of forming an angry cannonball and trying to devour your hand while you fling him across the room onto the bed. It sounds like I am joking or being cruel but he'll come racing back to me and climb back up so I'll do it again.

His other hobby is knocking everything off of flat surfaces. I don't even bother replacing my alarm clock when he breaks it, I just put it back together until it stops working.

Trim his claws and he'll never forgive you.

I don't think my older boy cat has ever forgiven me for the beast we brought into the home.

*One night, he was fighting with Clover and bit so hard he pulled away a chunk of fur, but didn't break skin. Naturally, he chose to bite her exactly on the spot where I'd just applied Frontline. In the interest of safety, we decided to wash his mouth out. So we wrangled him into the sink and washed his mouth out while he tried to figure out what the hell was happening (he was so surprised he couldn't even get mad) and wound up anointing his head thoroughly with water. I blurted "Well, we just baptized him" and my girlfriend blurted "Alexander Joseph Shitbird." Alex was the name from the rescue.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 12:10 AM on June 5, 2017 [12 favorites]


About 12 years ago, I woke up to pained and insistent meowing at my front door. I went downstairs and found a long-haired black and white cat at the door. He was fat, but his fur was matted and filthy, so I figured he was a stray. I gave him smoked salmon. Big mistake.

He started coming by every day. Then he started inviting himself in. When he began sleeping on the furniture though I knew I had to draw a line. Naturally, this meant giving him a bath and a haircut.

It was only when I started washing him that I noticed he had a tag, with his name - Snúður, a type of Icelandic cinnamon bun that also happens to be the name of a cat from a series of children's stories - and an address. I resolved to give these people are piece of my mind, after Snúður had his haircut.

I knew something was suspicious when I got to his address and saw Snúður's name on the front door, with the rest of the family. In fact, his name was first. I knocked on the door. I could see through the front window, in a corner of the living room, a giant basket bed, also with Snúður's name on it, next to a bowl of food and orbited by several toys.

The owner, a middle aged woman who was relieved to know Snúður was alive and well, told me he had been in the habit of visiting the neighbours and begging for food, but one day had stopped coming home altogether. Snúður blithely walked past me into his actual home, curled up on his bed, and looked at me like "What? What are you going to do?"

Nothing, of course. I got played, fair and square. And each time he came to visit I dutifully fed him again.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 1:04 AM on June 5, 2017 [8 favorites]


Ghostride The Whip - our first cat was also up for playfights but he was sensible enough to only do it with me. Glaring at me, arching the back, then jumping on the bed was the call to battle, and he'd stare down my hand and finally charge it while I made secret gang signs. I got scratched and bit but he never broke skin. Outside of this sanctioned roughhousing, he wasn't bitey.

I was always able to cut our cats' nails. They weren't thrilled, but past medical intimacy had earned me enough trust that they wouldn't fight or fuss too much.
posted by Artful Codger at 5:15 AM on June 5, 2017


Melanie the blind ratcatcher
Grownup ceiling kittens Olivia and Matilda (in stripes) with adopted sister Rosie (in black)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 5:34 AM on June 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


So I was telling my housemate about the article and this thread and was all, "I never knew that cats would just, like, invade your home - isn't that bizarre?" And he was like, "Oh, that happened a bunch of times when I was a kid - these cats would just run inside our house".

Cats, seriously.
posted by Frowner at 6:20 AM on June 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


My first cat, Morwen, was the daughter of a grand tuxedo tom that technically lived down the street. However, I called him Shakespeare and fed him and loved on him and considered him mostly mine. Apparently, he felt roughly the same (or he knew a good mark) because he would bring home his lady friends to live in our backyard when they had babies. He gave us four litters until my mom had had enough and took him to the vet and had him fixed without telling his "owners."

The first litter, Romeo, Hamlet, Ophelia, and Tybalt, were all divided up among my high school friends. The second litter, Arlo, Paul, Janis, and Bob, went to folks my dad worked with and a nice lady up the street. The third litter, Branwen, Morwen, and Morgan went to kids from high school again and I finally got to keep my sweet solid black beauty. The final litter was just two little boy kittens, Jimi and John, and they went to our vet who loved the hell out them the minute she met them.

Every litter had at least one tuxedo and every litter was the most efficient set of killers you've ever seen. The lady cats were usually feral or near enough. The same lady cat was mother of the first and third litter and eventually would let us pet her. Wenna's litter greeted us with a trio of dead mice every morning until her mother left her behind. Her life with us was full of dead lizards, squirrels, and once upon a time, an entire family of mockingbirds.

After I left for college, my parents moved to a house in the country and took Wenna with them. Unfortunately, she adapted poorly to living inside and dashed out the door one day never to be seen again. I like to imagine her as queen of the woods with a pile of squirrel and chipmunk skulls as her throne.

The old man Shakespeare continued to dominate the neighborhood and 25 years later, that neighborhood is still dominated by tuxedo cats.
posted by teleri025 at 7:04 AM on June 5, 2017 [6 favorites]


Here's Spot, the feral kitty I've been feeding. She'll let me talk to her through the screen, but otherwise won't come within three meters of me.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:31 AM on June 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


Here's my furry monster, playing his usual role as the class clown.
posted by janepanic at 11:53 AM on June 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


When we moved into our current house 5 years ago, one of the last things the previous owners told us was, "We don't have a cat. There's a cat that hangs around. He's not ours, so don't try asking if we lost our cat."

On moving day, we were eating pizza out on the back patio when a gorgeous orange and white cat came up, mostly ignored us and sat at the screen door leading in to the house looking in. Occasionally looking back at us to make sure we were watching, then looking in. The two cats that we already had were else where, but our dogs weren't super excited. Not having a name, my wife dubbed him Orange Cat, or OC.

OC was quite the character, but we didn't know who he lived with. We had a bus stop near our house, and he'd happily sit there. If anyone tried to pet him he'd hiss, swipe and bite at people. Then he'd settle down on the bus seat, watching the world again. I *loved* seeing an obviously uncomfortable person sitting next to OC doing their best to minimize their space usage while keeping an eye on him. I was also super afraid that eventually he'd piss off the wrong person. He'd occaisionally cross the street at the crosswalk, and always with the light. He looked old, and while he eventually occaisionally let me wife and I pet him, it was only around his face, go near his back only if you want a biting.

Eventually I met an older gentleman named Momar who said this was his cat. Dubbed Lucky because he was the one kitten to survive when he found a bag of kittens in his back yard. He said OC was 17.

OC disappeared for most of the winter, but when the spring/summer came around again, he was a near daily fixture of our house. Yeah, we were suckers and gave him treats - we even learned his flavour prefence. We tried leaving out dry cat food, but he was much less of a fan of it than the raccoons were, so that stopped pretty fast. Then one day I saw two young adults attempting unsuccessfully to get OC in a box while he was at the bus stop. Eventually after a bit of bloodshed I saw OC escape. Then he wasn't around for days. Then a week, maybe two. Ms. nobeagle had to check the SPCA - on the way there, I kept saying that we're not getting any more cats. I made her agree with me. We were just checking in to see if OC was there and if we should notify Momar.

OC was not at the SPCA, however there was one cat that my wife wanted to see/visit against my protestations; an overweight fellow then named Magnum. While petting him I made the mistake of saying how much brushing he'd need at home. Opps, ms. nobeagle jumped on my use of present tense, and soon we were plotting on becoming a 3 cat household. But wait, cats were $120, but if you adopt one, you get a second for $10? ... I asked to look at their largest non-fat cats, and then-named Arkansas was a grey tabby with a spotted belly (part savannah?) who was in our face. Fine, a four cat household.

A few weeks later OC showed up again. At first we didn't think it was him - OC had disappeared, right? But we compared pictures and yes, this was definitely OC. Looking scrawnier, and even less likely to let us pet him. But still happy for treats. He disappeared for most of the winter again,but in spring-fall 2014 and 2015 he became a regular fixture again. Until he stopped in the middle of summer in 2015.

A few weeks went by, and we talked about last time. Maybe the owners went on vacation and they boarded him. It looked like someone had moved out of the house that I thought Momar rented part of. Ok, maybe he moved? Eventually in early winter of 2016 we kind of accepted that OC had gone off to live on a farm.

Out of the blue a few days ago OC showed up again! In theory 22, still happy for treats. I haven't seen Momar since I first met him in 2012. And that day my wife and I saw OC a bunch of times around the house. And then gone after that day. Our best guess is someone adopted him and turned him into an indoor cat. Which given the number of times he tried to just walk in our front/back door as we did seems like what he really wanted. And with the good spring weather OC decided to needed to do a bar crawl from his youth. He didn't terrorize the bus stop however.

I'm sad that OC was never really right for us - he's not really much of an afficianado of other cats from what we can tell and with having a decade on our other cats that's probably not a recipie for success. He also was not a fan of our current dog from the times they met at the front porch. But it's nice that there's good evidence that OC has a nice warm secure place and is still kicking around. And maybe we'll still get the occaisional yearly visit.

OC is totally a cat that someone could wake up to and realize that they now have a cat.
posted by nobeagle at 12:32 PM on June 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


Oh, wow, Spot has one of the most elaborate face masks I've ever seen!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:01 PM on June 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


Something like... 28 years ago, I worked as a traveling assistant manager for a now-defunct Eastern Seaboard chain bookstore. One day, as we were nearing completion of construction/stocking of a new "Super" store northeast of DC, a coworker came in from dumping a bunch of shipping material in our Dumpster with a box full of newborn kittens that some asshole had dumped. One of them, a tiny little tortoiseshell with hairfur sticking out in all directions pretty quickly attached itself to me. At the end of the day, all of the other kittehs had gone home with one coworker or another, except that one. And that's how Einstein came into my life. He was tiny enough to fit into the palm of my hand. As a teeeeensy kitten, his favorite place to sleep was inside my sneaker.

Oh, and, he wasn't actually a 'he', as I discovered upon her first vet visit, two days after discovery.

Einstein stayed with me for 9 or 10 years. When my first son was born, he turned out to have pretty severe breathing problems that the doctors attributed to the cat. Shortly after my wife and I were told that, Einstein bonded herself pretty strongly to a visiting friend whom she went home with. Couple of weeks later, she bonded even stronger to the cable guy working at the friend's house, and that's when I lost track of her.
posted by hanov3r at 4:13 PM on June 5, 2017




We'd catch a small, thin but muscular orange tomcat climbing the pole of our birdfeeder to eat suet out of the suet cage. When he improbably ingratiated himself with our cranky old cat we began feeding him, while looking for the owner he must surely have. When our cat died we stopped looking and adopted him. He was hyperactive, but sweet, and his motto seemed to be "Look what I can do!" He was always climbing up trees, climbing the trellis, balancing on the top of fences. When we took him to the vet to get a check-up and shots, it was clear he had never heard of a thing like this, and he kept trying casually to leave. We then thought he must be someone's barn cat who had wandered off. We had him for months, then he came home with a limp and seemed anxious. He hid in the basement. Finally, he calmed down but a couple of weeks later he disappeared. We hope he had another home and went back to it; otherwise we have to assume he was in the Witness Protection Program but the mob found him and he had to move on. Mainly I just wanted to post his picture, because we think of him fondly and I look for him every time I drive by a barn.
posted by acrasis at 5:44 PM on June 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


A poster recently pondered the line between beloved pets and not-pets and whatever that is -- testing our authority or showing affection or having a certain reliability -- cats have this when they are clearly, clearly vermin.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 7:21 PM on June 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


That poor white cat at #7 though.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 7:22 PM on June 5, 2017


I kind of want this to happen to me someday.

Well, just over 24 hours after I said this, the friendly and chatty marbled Bengal I once met on a walk in a nearby (but not super close by) neighborhood on February 15 and never managed to run into again, even after walking through that neighborhood every day for a few weeks hoping I'd see it, showed up literally on my front lawn. I was just getting home from playing tennis when I saw it cross the street into my yard, and we hung out for a while. I got in lots of petting and took much better photos this time.

I first met this cat while on the phone with a friend around whom magical things kept happening. So it seemed like just another example of that strange synchronicity. Thus I'm not sure what to make of the cat coming to find me, but being chosen for a visit by a cat like that, especially one that lives so far away, definitely seems like a good sign. I'll take it! (Now if only I could actually take the cat.)

The creamsicle-colored cat I once ran into in a neighbor's driveway and petted while talking to my friend on the phone another time has also since come to visit me. So I feel super lucky. (I also feel like there are lots of mice and birds in my yard to stalk.)
posted by limeonaire at 7:56 PM on June 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


Here's my kitties taking a nap. Although they can mostly be found by looking up, at the highest point in the room, where no cat could possibly be, and there you will find one of my cats.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 10:34 PM on June 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


My ex and i went out to fetch ourselves respective cats after her very old and well loved cat expired. I was tending toward a small and cute looking one based on photos from the shelter we were perusing, but she was all wrecked and timid when I got there. I was looking for a black shorthair because they are the best tbh. Saw the biggest pile of black fur lounging in a kitty hammock in one room. Name on his care sheet was something like Trevor. Trevor had a lot of warnings on his sheet. Bitey. No kids allowed. Questionable with other animals. I watched him bully some other cats out of their food, then went in to meet him. Got within 6 inches of him and he was all hiss and claw action

"this murder cat shall be mine" i say and ask the workers to let me get to know him in the teensy "get 2 know u!!!" room they had. "trevor" was poured into the room and immediately started casing the joint for a place to get out. he was so weird and thoughtful with his probing and standing on hind legs and trying the doorknob and feeling under the divider walls that my heart immediately melted. "we picked him up off the streets. he's been in the shelter for 6 months" says the volunteer. my brain keeps thinking about all the bitey, and the cat tormenting, and the "no kids!" and the notes from volunteers where they say things like "he was a ..um... festive guy! oh god how he tore me up with his sharp sharp claws"

but all that aside i knew trevor was my guy. we went home that night to think over matters. i come back with a small dog size carrier because this cat is fucking huge

once i sign the papers trevor becomes Meat Loaf. Meat Loaf is extremely quiet on the way home. i wonder if he is plotting something. i let him out of carrier upstairs in my room. he oh so carefully picks his way out of the carrier, starts up a high-decibel purr, and goes limp in my lap.

Meat Loaf has shortened to Loaf and he is the best fucking cat in the universe. he is a loud, talkative little man with an incredible range of sounds; he sometimes sings along with me; he does backflips when we play chase the string toy; he is weirdly pack oriented and if awake wants to be in the same room as his humans; he will sit on me and mash a paw against my face and bobble his head down onto my chest as he falls asleep while purring. he is a weird boy. he is larger and worse than other cats, and i am grateful to be the one who got to spring him from the kitty joint.

obligatory loafy shot
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 11:02 PM on June 5, 2017 [16 favorites]


Here are Zhuchka and Name TBD, two of the other ferals who dine when Spot is finished. They all take turns dining solo.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:20 AM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


Not my cat, but OMG this kitten loves a bath.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:48 AM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


Technically, I think that kitten might love a shower.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:42 PM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


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