Out of Africa.

My roommate made me promise to begin this blog with a warning. So heads up: I'm going to write about my cat.

First, it should be acknowledged that I am not a "cat person". I didn't grow up with them, and a few years ago, my hatred for cats was so severe I almost got up and walked out of the musical "Cats" because I was so grossed out. At the time, I was renting a house and my neighbor to the west had a million cats they refused to fix. My hippie neighbor to the east, while hating the cats as much as I did, still fed them so as to avoid the karmic repercussions of letting them starve. Thus, I was kept up at night with fighting cats, greeted almost daily with cat turds on my back mat, and my car was constantly covered in dusty paw prints. People that knew me then are always stunned when they find out I own - by choice - a cat.

It's a long story as to how I came to get Gus, but I've had him about two years now. The great thing about having never had a cat growing up is that I only know how to treat dogs. And because Gus is actually very smart (and because a Super Soaker is far more effective than a squirt bottle when it comes to curbing bad behavior), he's turned out to be quite the pet. He runs to the door when anyone knocks, is very friendly, loves to play fetch and can sit on command. He also knows that when I say "out", it's time for him to leave whatever room he's in at the time, and he jumps down from the counter if I say "down". He's pretty quiet unless he's hungry, or it's 7am because he knows it's time for us to get up. And being a cat, I never have to "walk" him. So it's like having the benefits of a dog, rooster, and cat all rolled into one.

He's quite ugly - obviously a mutt of some sort, but we're not sure of which breeds. My roommate has a friend with an extensive knowledge of different cat breeds. He took one look at Gus and suggested he might be part African hunting cat. We basically thought he was full of shit, but after he left, we looked it up. Apparently, there are breeds of cats people have domesticated, but are essentially wild African cats. They're illegal to own in many cities, but gaining popularity. Gus does bear a striking resemblance to these cats, and upon further investigation, we learned there is a "cattery" breeding these things near where Mom found Gus. Based on Gus's brothers (which clearly have different fathers), we know Gus's mom was a slut. So my hypothesis is Gus's whore of a mom jumped the fence at this cattery, banged a Savannah cat (their technical name) and then went off to have Gus in a storm drain. The bad news is Gus is the feline equivalent of the prom night dumpster baby. The good news is, we now have a multi-ethnic household, and are looking forward to celebrating our first Kwanzaa this year.