We had three cats at that point, two of whom favored me a lot more than they favored Laura. Until a little over a year ago, we had just two cats, Moe and Murphy, who were the same age. Then Laura and Julia wanted a new kitten. I was against it because I didn't think it was necessary. If fact, when Laura and Julia went to pick up the kitten at the Humane Society, the HS people called me to get my permission. I felt very tempted to say that I didn't want a cat, but I relented.
Laura and Julia picked out a female they named, Suzie. Now it's been a good track record that female cats tend to gravitate themselves to me. I told Laura that she should get a male cat because I didn't want her jealous when a female kitten started to favor me. She felt that was ridiculous, so in the end, they got a female kitten.
I had requested that Laura and Julia would be responsible for the kitten so I wouldn't corrupt it. This worked for a few days, but then they got tired of always tending to the kitten, so I got brought into the mix despite my warnings. Sure enough, after a few months, Suzie started to gravitate towards me. Straight out of a cliche'd movie, Laura would be in one chair tapping her leg while exclaiming, "Suzie!". I waited and tapped my lap while also exclaiming Suzie's name. Sure enough, Suzie took off for me. Before long, Suzie was completely corrupted by me and followed me around wherever I went.
So when Moe died, Laura was sad for a bit, but then she was really pissed off because then she had no cats that favored her. It was only heightened when we'd be watching TV in the living room and Suzie would stroll into the room. She bypassed Laura's pleas and jumped into my lap.
Laura seethed, "It's not fair! At least you have two cats that still love you!"
So it was decided that we would get another cat. After several weeks, we went to the Humane Society to pick out our cat. We had been there a few times prior scouting out some cats. Laura had even had a private room session with one of the cats a week prior, an orange tabby they named, Cheddar, but she wasn't sure if he was right. She didn't have her heart set on Cheddar, but she just wanted a cat that liked to cuddle.
We picked one orange tabby cat to look at, but when he was brought into the room, he spent the entire time just wandering and paying no attention to us at all. After a few minutes, I said, "Well, I don't think he's very interested in us."
Laura agreed and they brought in Cheddar. We didn't pick him first because he was a rather scrawny cat. He was eight-months old and had a skinny body and skinny legs.
The Humane Society worker pulled Cheddar out of his cage and he immediately bounded for our private room. Once inside, he jumped up on the bench we were sitting on, put his head on Laura's leg and started purring loudly. She pet him and he responded with even more purring. Over the next 10 minutes, it was obvious that Cheddar was the cat we were taking home. He seemed to love all of us. Laura had a name picked for him: Boris, after Boris Yeltzen (don't ask).
We packed Boris into the cardboard carrier and placed him in my car. Laura had to go back to work. Julia and I started driving home. Boris started to meow loudly. He started to claw frantically at the holes inside the box.
Julia started to yell, "Dad! He's trying to get out!"
I tried reassuring Boris, but he was bound and determined to get out of the cardboard carrier.
"Oh my gosh!" Julia exclaimed, "He's dug a hole in the box! He's going to get out!"
I reached into the backseat and felt the box. Sure enough, there was a hold in the box. I reached a finger into the box to try and stroke Boris' head, but was scratched instead by the whining cat that frantically started resuming his prison break.
I looked around the front of my car and grabbed a CD case from the console. I reached back and said, "Here. Hold this over the hole."
Julia did as instructed. She held the CD over the hole, but Boris kept clawing away at the box. Julia squealed a few times and exclaimed, "This is the weirdest day of my entire life!"
She protested that she couldn't keep Boris out any longer, so I took the CD case and held it over the hole with my right arm stretched to the back seat and my left arm still on the steering wheel. I felt like stopping to calm him down, but I figured that getting him home as fast as possible was the wisest strategy.
Once home, we shut him into our room and shut Murphy and Suzie out. After a few days, we opened the door and let Boris meet the rest of the cats. There was a lot of hissing and chasing for a while, but he quickly won over Suzie since they are around the same age and they became buddies. Murphy still hasn't befriended him. Not that Boris cares.
There are a few things about Boris that we have noticed. While Moe ruled the house like a tyranical king in which he did everything himself and attacked all threats, Boris rules like a lazy emperor.
Boris likes to eat.
He was practically skin and bones when we first brought him home, but he quickly got into a routine of eating. If he doesn't have food, he whines and cries. If he does have food, he whines and cries as if there isn't enough. If I add food to the bowl, you'll often hear a cat sprint downstairs to get to the food and it's always Boris.
Boris is a little demanding.
Besides the food demands, Boris will whine and complain if he doesn't have enough fresh water. He'll sit there and meow in protest of his lack of water. If that doesn't work, he dips his paw into the bowl and starts sloshing the water out of it and all over the floor. Lately, he's just taken to dumping the whole thing over to get me to fill it up with some fresh water. I thought briefly about getting a filtered pet water fountain, but I figured he'd then start complaining if the filter wasn't fresh, so I dropped that idea.
Boris also is demanding of Suzie on getting cleaned. Our old cat, Moe, cleaned his hard-to-reach areas like any other cat by twisting his head around or putting saliva on his paw and rubbing it on his out-of-reach areas. Boris just walks up to Suzie when she's cleaning herself and drops down in front of her. This is her cue to start bathing him. One gets the picture of an old emporer lounging while a bather cleans him.
Boris is an attention whore.
Moe liked his attention, but usually just from us. Boris, on the other hand, prefers his attention givers like doctor's prefer their patients, with a pulse. There hasn't been a person that Boris hasn't prompted for attention.
He's climbed onto the laps of door-to-door salespeople, a water softener representative, a gas company tech and various kids that have come over. He even rolled onto his back when he was chained up outside on Halloween so
the parade of kids could all pet him. He's like the town doorknob: everyone gets a turn.
Now that I have a laptop computer, Boris jets for my lap when I have it on. He must love the warmth that comes off of it because I can't keep him off my lap for too long.
The up side is that he's a friendly cat to everyone, which is also a downside. I've mentioned before that Moe could be very aggressive and attacked people he didn't know (or acted like he was going to). While I counted on Moe to scare away any burglar that might break in, I get the feeling that Boris will just follow the burglar around purring and rubbing against the burglar's leg while the burglar robs us blind.
Boris is incredibly lazy.
I know cats sleep a lot, but Boris has taken it up a notch. He just seems to sleep all the time. Oh sure, he gets up to eat and drink, but then he lies down to do it. As you can see in the pictures here, he lies down down on his side to drink or eat. Granted, he could stand up and stoop over his bowl like any other animal, but that would be asking too much of him. once, I saw him get up from a long nap in his favorite chair, lie down to drink and then fall asleep in mid-drink because it was so much effort to move over from his nap chair to take that drink. He also lies
down to eat.
I'm exaggerating a little. Boris doesn't sleep all the time, but he does spend a large amount of time eating, drinking and getting attention when he isn't asleep.
What I am happy about is that Laura got her wish. Boris is more than willing to lie there and cuddle. To that end, he's a great cat.
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