“After scolding one’s cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference.”-Charlotte Gray
I’ve had my own cats since my junior year of college. My first cat, Tepper, played chicken with a car and lost. This happened at the end of Thanksgiving break, in the middle of the time that I was supposed to be completing a complicated groundwater hydraulic model. Thanks, Tepp.
I’d already gotten Morgan by the time Tepper met his grave, and she became an inside cat (as if it was of her own choosing). This was a little sad because I lived on the second floor and to come home she did this stunning, acrobatic, flying leap from the ground to the fence and then through the slats of my deck. It was really amazing to watch. She liked to sleep in the sun behind the cypress trees behind my apartment. (She also liked to bring home half-dead fetal mice, but that’s another matter.)
A few months after Tepper died, I got Kylee, also known as favorite kitty. And a few months after that I got tiny little Jezabel. Jezabel nearly died of anaphylactic shock after her first suite of vaccinations, so that further solidified the inside cat thing (and cost $400).
The point of all that above is that I have had the same three cats since the late 90s. For the entire time I’ve had them, I have made them stop licking their asses when they are in my vicinity. Yet they still do it. Cats are gross.
