Mama and I were married in May of 2004 and about that time, Mama’s brother was out golfing and heard a high pitched kitten “mew…mew…meeew”. It turned out to be an abandoned long-haired Maine Coon kitten less than a month old.  The poor guy was so young, he couldn’t even lap up milk from a saucer. He had to be bottle-fed. Mama’s brother took him home and took care of him until he was old enough to at least lap up milk. He and his wife already had 2 cats and weren’t looking to keep a third so they started to look for a home for him.

Mama always had at least 1 cat growing up and always wanted at least 1 cat around. I always had NO pets growing up and wanted NO pets around. However, Mama’s brother offered the kitten to us and Mama almost immediately said “yes.” I tried to “put my foot down” but being a newly-wed, I wanted to showcase my ability to compromise so I reluctantly agreed, but with conditions.

1). The cat would not sleep in our room. I couldn’t sleep knowing a sneaky, calculating, cold-blooded feline was plotting my demise while I was asleep.

2). I would not change a litter box. It sounded like about the most disgusting job in the world. I refused to do it.

3). I got to name it. If I had to live with this thing, by gum, if I wanted to call it “Little Bastard” then that was going to be its name.”

Incidentally, while I was in college, Shari’s (the restaurant) offered a dinner called “The Captain’s Platter” which I auspiciously ordered one late evening/early morning with friends. When the meal arrived, the waitress (obviously annoyed at our late-night presence) asked “who has the Captain’s Platter?”

To which I replied somewhat annoyed at her annoyance, “That’s me. I’m the Captain.” My friends thought it was hilarious and quoted that for several years following. I sort of “passed the torch” so-to-speak to this little 1-month old kitten.

And so, that is how we came to be cat-owners.

As far as cats go, he was about as annoying as a cat could be. And I suppose I mean it in a good way, but there were times when I would actually take pleasure in pestering him…just for revenge.

It was always an ongoing battle with him.

He shed so much, we gave him a “lion cut” because we were sick of having to comb out his matted fur, and sick of him throwing up all the fur he shed from licking himself.

We’d comb him. He’d bite the comb…and then bite our hands. Mind you, it wasn’t a vicious bite, just annoying enough to try to make us stop, but not hard enough to actually draw blood.

We would push his buttons in every way imaginable (you know, petting his “oh-so-sensitive” hindquarters, trapping him between our legs, jiggling his “kitty belly”). He would take it for about 15-20 seconds… literally. He would just lay there on his back, wapping his tail about furiously, but never trying to get up, and most the time never even moving –  until he got fed up with us and would start to bite our hands, our feet, or whatever was closest. Again, when I say “bite” I mean, he would bite hard, but never break the skin.

And then once we stopped, he would GLARE at us, and lick his lips twice. Always twice. Why? It was his way of showing his annoyance with us; like, “How dare you ‘get’ my kitty belly?…Now ‘get’ me some Fancy Feast!” And then he would lick his paws like we were beneath him. (Don’t all cats do that one though?)

Anyway, what set him apart from other cats, is that he would literally take his revenge on us that night…and he knew exactly how to push OUR buttons. He would wait until about 2am and then “meow” at us like, “It’s 2am now. I think you should wake up.” And if we didn’t respond, he would take more drastic measures until we did.

Step 1. Bite our shoelaces. I keep my tennis shoes in my bedroom and I never knew they could be so annoying when bitten. Imagine the high-pitched cringing creaky sound cotton balls made when you chewed on them as a kid. Now multiply that by… oh, a billion. Cat teeth + cotton shoelace = “mmphrrgg…nooo…gowaycat!!”

Step 2. Scratch on the wall or bedroom door… even if the door is opened. If there was a chalkboard, he would scratch on that instead. And of course, he was always just out of arm’s reach, so if we wanted to get him to stop, we would have to get out of bed to do it…which was of course his goal.

Then as soon as we got out of bed, he would run away. …darn cat.

Step 3. “Wet Nose.” Any cat owner knows what I mean by this. You are in a very deep sleep, so much so that you are immune to any creatively annoying noises a mischievous cat can conceive. Queue the “wet nose” in the face trick. Nothing wakes you up quicker than cat whiskers tickling your face, and a wet cat nose on your lips. Not to mention the enormous weight that was now camped on your chest…and he WAS a big kitty.

He filled out to about 18 lbs and was about as clumsy as they come. He was a giant as far as cats go.

I suppose some of the “revenge” that he would exact on us was deserved, but whoever heard of a spiteful cat?

If Mama was laying with bare feet on the floor…he would sit on our leg pinning it down and attack her feet…

This cat had an obsession with biting us even as a kitten… actually, he I think he saw himself as a lion and “just wanted to bite anything.”

…which is why we got our other cat Chloe. Chloe is a typical affectionate kitty. Chloe purrs when petted. Chloe likes to be petted and pampered. We got Chloe so we could again go barefoot in our own house without red scratches from a giant orange 18-lbs mini-lion prancing around sideways with his tail all bushy and his eyes dialated looking for “another kill”.

When Chloe came along, Captain got another thing to target besides our feet.

We gave Chloe nickname, “The sacrificial lamb.” Captain was nicknamed “The abomination.”

If you were asleep in our house and your hand was hanging off the bed, stranger or not, it was fair game for Captain. If you thought he wanted to be petted and got your hand close enough for him to sniff it, it was close enough for him to bite it. Hands, fingers, wedding rings, whatever, he would gnaw away with his crazy eyes. Get him going enough, and he would pull you close enough with his front paws so he could dig into you with his hind claws as they “kick-kick-kicked” away.

Any string, shoelace, yarn, thread, whatever of more than 2 feet in length became Captain’s personal “binky” and he would sit by it, day and night, and trill at us until we moved it for him.

Sometimes this would last hours. Then, when finally, someone gave in to the incessant half-meow, half-purr that he used to make his demands he would play with it for a solid 10 seconds before laying down and deciding that your moving of the string was just “not worth the effort” of batting at it or biting it anymore. If it couldn’t be played with laying down, …”well, you better still try to get me to play with it or you will gall-darn pay for it tonight.”
…and we did.

It could be all the way downstairs, and he would trill at us all night until at like 2am, when we finally furiously got out of bed upstairs, chased him downstairs with a half-empty spray-bottle, and where does he run to? his binky. This cat. “It’s 2am. Play with me.

But he was house-savvy. He knew when people were coming and going. He knew what the sound of keys jingling meant. He knew what a can being opened sounded like. He could even tell which kitchen drawer was being opened and the sound of kitty food being poured three rooms away.

You know how some cats can be trained to use the toilet? We had to keep all the toilet lids closed because Captain would drink out of the toilet…and then walk around with “wet paws.”

He also trained Mama to give him water to drink out of the tap …every morning. He drank right from the sink. …or he meowed for it loudly ALL DAY.

But he had a sweeter side too, though he would hate to admit it. Since he was abandoned when he was too young to learn to be a “cat,” all his mannerisms and instincts were learned from people. He was a social kitty. If people were around, he wanted to be the one to greet them. If a stranger sat down on the couch (which was covered in his 3″ cat hair) for the first time, he would jump up on their lap and sit right on down to make sure no part of them was missed by his “covering.” If there was a social gathering and an extra chair was available, Captain would be sitting in it….or he would be in someone’s lap.

When Jonny came along, Captain was more patient with him than with anyone else. He wouldn’t ever use claws on him, even when Jonny pulled his tail, and rarely tried to bite at him for bugging him (which in itself is saying something).

He loved Jonny’s soft blankets. He used to pull them out and drag them around the house in his teeth while he kneeded them, while looking at me like he was saying “Shut up. It’s soft.”

Over the years, Captain became more and more my cat. When we first got him, Mama worked night shifts at the hospital and (since I adapted the same sleep schedule as Mama) it was just me and Captain at home all night for the first 4 years of our marriage. If he couldn’t be sitting in my lap, he would ALWAYS be in the room with me.  And since we moved away from most our friends, the number of close friends with which I had an active relationship dwindled. He became my companion even as I didn’t want to admit it.

But as he got bigger and bigger, my lap seemed to be the only one that suited (or fit) him. He would even try to get to my lap if Jonny was already in it. And he was an uncoordinated thing too…and I’m pretty sure Jonny had quicker reflexes as a 2 year old than him. He would slip and fall off the chair trying to step over my arm to get to my lap while I was working on the computer. Sure-footed, he was not.

But he was always there to greet me. Every time I would come home, he would rub my legs (especially when my arms were full with groceries and/or a child) and scold me by trilling annoyingly for leaving him. He would scold me for being able to see the bottom of his food dish, or if he could see 3 crumbs in it. He would wake me up in the middle of the night for no other reason than he wanted to spend time with me. He was a high-maintenance kitty, but then, he was a person-cat, a friend, and more than a 1-dimensional pet that just wanted to be petted and fed.

And even though he was my pet, there was a love-hate relationship that we built that waxed and waned over the years that the only other comparison that would sort of justify it would be to having another child.

He always wanted to be outside, though he had no outdoor skills. He couldn’t climb, he was slow, and he was clumsy. I always tried to keep him inside and he always tried to escape.

The first time I let him out in the front, he ran right to my next-door neighbor’s house, started munching on the neighbor cat’s food, and then started eating my neighbors freshly planted flowers right in front of my neighbor. I felt like the parent of an unruly child.  Truly I did.

As it got warmer, we began to let him romp around in the grass in our enclosed back yard while we worked outside and he enjoyed it. He liked eating the grass. His fur was almost as long as it.