Listography 1: Pets

So I’ve been cleaning out my apartment to get ready for the big move, and yesterday I stumbled upon the Listography book I purchased a few years ago but had only scantily used. It kind of made me sad–I was so looking forward to completing lists of my life that would maybe describe me a little more and preserve me in time a bit. 

Then I had an idea.

I decided that in order to keep me writing on here and to get me to use the book, I would answer the questions on my blog every-so-often. It seemed brilliant at the time. Most of those posts will probably initially seem a bit boring because the first half of the book appears to be a little droll, but I’ll try to spice them up. 

So here goes. List one: The Pets I’ve Owned

Mugsey the cat. I’m not one-hundred percent sure about this, but I think Mugsey was the first pet I ever owned. He was a pudgy Russian Blue, and he was beautiful and grey with a white patch where a belly-button would have been if he wasn’t so furry. 

He was supposed to be my mom’s cat, but he took to me for some odd reason. It was seriously odd, too, considering how much I tortured that cat physically and emotionally. I’d constantly stroke his ears (I had and, hell, still have a thing for ear lobes–they’re so intriguing) and I’d dress him up in my ballet leotards and make him play “dance routine” with me in the living room when my parents were otherwise occupied. 

Mugsey was the best friend I ever had, honestly. He’d take care of me when I was sick, loyally sleeping off my illness with me as he cuddled at my side, and he was just as dependent upon me emotionally as I was upon him. When we got older, he refused to eat unless I was around. When I went to Kansas City to attend UMKC, he lost so much weight that he looked like a skeleton with a chenille throw draped over him. He gained a little bit of it back, but he died while I was studying in London, which broke my heart. The night he died, before my mom had told me he was gone, I had a dream that he was cuddling next to me once more. I could feel him next to me. It was real, no matter how weird it is to say that with certainty.

Sylvester the cat. Sylvester was a little terror. Well, a big terror. He was huge and white with grey patches and he hated Mugsey. And he peed and sprayed on EVERYTHING. He even peed on me a couple of times, which was part of the sort downhill slide to our sending him elsewhere. I’m not sure where he ended up, but I hope that there were lots of lady cats who dig that sort of thing where ever he went. 

Spooky the Cat. Spooks was so cool. Black, thin, caring if you could catch him and force him to snuggle with you, he was just awesome. I remember him hiding a lot, and I kind of admired that shy persona. Why should I be out here interacting with you when I could be hiding, watching you, and not being bothered by you? Maybe that was one factor that contributed to my shyness as a child. Maybe not.

Despite Spooky’s clandestine nature and tiny frame, he was always getting himself into spatial predicaments. He got lost in our basement while we lived in Wichita and we found him stuck in a big box under the stairs the next day, meowing like his life depended on it (which it really did, if you think about it. I don’t try to make a habit of storing cats in wardrobe boxes, so that’d not be on the top of the list of places to look. 

That nature to hide was, unfortunately, also the element of his personality that led to his demise. One day, Spooks was playing in our neighbor’s window well and got hungry so he ate a toad. Well, toads secrete this chemical through their skin that makes some animals (yes, cats) foam at the mouth. I saw Spooks eat the toad, and I knew that that was a thing, so I didn’t think much of it; I just wanted to climb down and get my cat who I knew had been well-vaccinated for all of the feline things and was, once again, stuck somewhere. When I went inside to get my dad (who I found out was not home), though, Roberta, our neighbor, saw Spooks and called the policeman down the street. I came back just in time to see him shoot my cat. That was the loneliest Halloween, even Mugsey seemed down.

Cutie Pie I the cat. A few months after Spooky’s death, we got an orange and white cat from my mom’s friend Dawn in Lamar, MO. Cutie Pie I was the second most rambunctious cat I’ve ever seen. He could not be stopped. I’d catch him and, after about a half an hour, he’d fall asleep in my arms, licking my shirt. When he’d wake up to go run around some more, I’d have massive wet designs on my shoulders and chest. He also had long hair that he would get poo stuck in, and he would drag it across the carpet an an incredible speed–like he was late for something but still trying to get some make-shift toilet paper usage in. Needless to say, Cutie Pie I didn’t last too long in our house with white carpet.

Cutie Pie II the cat (or PQ as I adapted from my friend Christi). So my mom developed a complex where she could only name animals Cutie Pie for some reason, and it got confusing and obnoxious. It’s not like I wanted animals to die or get toted off to somewhere else just so we could the fun of using several cutesy little names, but part of the fun of having pets is naming them. And the best part of naming pets is picking a sweet quirky name that fits the animal. So naturally, when my mom grabbed the reigns and labeled the new cat Cutie Pie, I resisted. I wasn’t very good at it, though. I couldn’t come up with anything. I actually distinctly remember not being able to summon the cat because I couldn’t decide what to call her. 

When Christi and Lauren moved to Longview, they were over at our house all of the time and they came up with PQ, which stuck more than my silence, so it worked in the end. 

PQ was a little troublesome fireball. She’d climb the brick wall around our fireplace, sprint out the door and get stuck in the weirdest places. She was a black cat, too, like Spooky. Getting stuck places must be a habit for that phenotype. I feel like that comment is racist in a way, but that’s not my intention. She got stuck in the front of the loading area of our moving truck when we were moving to Missouri. She got stuck on the walls that she climbed. It was just a thing.

PQ was also the first cat we had that ever ran away and came back. I remember just thinking that she didn’t want us anymore and then one night , she was back. My mom woke me up to tell me that she was back. She ran away again in Missouri, this time never to return.

Brutus the fish. I got my first fish right before I went to college. He was a super cool beta who danced to jazz music. He particularly enjoyed the Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil soundtrack, so he an I got along well. I hated having to catch him to clean out his bowl, though, and I was always ambition with the underwater decorations, so they were always really grimy, too. My college roommate didn’t like me at all, but she liked my fish, so we kind of got along because of that. College was weird, even to me, the boring girl.

Sebastian the fish. I got Sebastian, another beta, to keep and even keel on the kitchen table. I kept Brutus in a tall wine glass, and I kept Sebastian in a shorter container. I’d switch them out every once in a while just to keep things spicy, but despite both Brutus and Sebastian’s seemingly good health, They both died within a week or so of each other. I think there must have been something wrong with the water or something. Maybe I just suck at taking care of fish.

Bosley the cat. Melissa found Bosley and she knew that I wanted a cat, so she called me up to come see him. She’d been holding him for the hour-and-a-half leading up to when I got there, so I should have known that he was going to favor her for the rest of his life. She was his savior and I was ripping him away from the comfort of heaven. I was living with Melissa at the time, and Bosley would cuddle with her and behave for her and pee all over my bed. He was an über vocal little bastard, too, and he would scratch my door and meow all night long. Then he’d run around the apartment nonstop for what seemed like years. 

I decided that my tiny apartment was far too small for this little cat with such a high metabolic rate, and he was being a royal terror and, frankly, getting mean, so I took him out to my mom’s place in the middle of nowhere. He loved it out there and was even getting along with my mom’s cats every once in a while, but then one day my mom and Craig just found him dead. No evidence of anything. Just creepy dead. 

Since Bos, I’ve taken a hiatus from the pet world. I’m too all over the place to come home and cultivate a relationship with a pet. I’ve fallen in puppy love a million times, but I know I’m not ready for a dog. Really, I just like when kind of snobby cats like me. It makes me feel like I’m friends with some sort of celebrity. The same is true about my feelings toward other people’s cool children. All I want is their acceptance into the club. Until I get over this idolizing stage and figure out how to coexist with pets and people, big and small, I think I just need to cool it in the pet department.