Tale of Two Kitties

Who writes the cheesiest post titles ever? Me, that's who!

Moving on. We have two cats. My favorite is Maggie.

Maggie - Cutest Cat Ever

We found her when she was a wee little thing, and I was very sick at the time, and she kept me company while I was home, hopped up on prescription cough syrup and contemplating death. (Having bronchitis for two straight months will do that to you.) She was initially an inside cat, because I am afraid of all the bad things that happen to outside cat. She never really escaped, except once when our house was broken into, which sucked. We found her terrified, under the house, so we figured she was a bit of a wuss.

A couple years later, we got Louie (the dog), and they did not get along. He wanted to play, she didn't. And she started looking longingly out the window.

And then another cat showed up. And we started feeding him, and I named him Christopher. (One of my all-time favorite names, but Dick has forbidden me from naming any future children Christopher, so I used it on the cat.) He stayed outside (unless it was really cold) and Maggie stayed inside. We did this because Christopher is overwhelming love-sucking machine. He drove me crazy, with constant meowing and talking and rubbing. He would drive the dog crazy too. And Christopher was a crazy-killing-machine. He would kill rats and squirrels and birds and lizards and leave them on the porch. One day, in particular, when I came home, he was sitting on the porch eating (literally eating) a dead squirrel. Like it was the tastiest thing ever. And! And, he also killed two bats. I have no idea how he did that. Anyway, we admired his killing skills and didn't want to take him out of his killing fields. And did I mention he drives me crazy?

Christopher - Annoying the hell out of Louie. Poor dog.

But Maggie would watch, all sad-eyed, from the living room window. So, one day, we decided to let her out to hang out with Christopher for a couple of hours. And then she was going outside during the day, but coming in at night. And now, she is out all the time. Maybe once every two weeks, she'll decide she needs to be in for the night. But the moment you open the front door in the morning, she is bounding outside. (She really does bound.) This has done wonders for her self-esteem. She does not let Louie fuck with her anymore, and she and Christopher have been known to tag-team a wandering neighborhood cat. (They line up in formation, I swear, and you can almost hear the soundtrack to West Side Story.)

Christopher has become very lazy though. Seriously, he'll let a squirrel run through the yard right next to him. It's almost embarrassing. And we figured that Maggie just doesn't have the killing ability, since she was an inside cat for so long. But... A couple days ago, Christopher was hanging inside with us for a little while (So. Annoying. With the meowing.) And we let him out and then a couple minutes later, Dick went outside and there was a dead rat on the stoop. Like freshly dead. Dick picked it up to put it in the trash (using some newspaper. It has so many uses!) and it was still warm. Dick thinks Christopher did it right after we let him out. I don't think there was enough time. I think Maggie did it. Has Christopher passed the torch to Maggie? Has the student become the master? Can I think of anymore clichés?

Maggie - Looking over the killing fields

We may never know. But, speaking of the truth being out there and whatnot - there is going to be another X-Files Movie. Hooray!