This is a short biography of a pet called Cat. For me, Cat was a great pet even though I had never given her a name. Pets can be special, because even though they can't talk, they can communicate with you and enrich your life. So it was with Cat.
I acquired Cat while working at Mits Computer Systems as a hardware service technician. I went to the clinic at Olds (a town about an hour northwest of Calgary) to replace a disk drive in a Pertec 3200, a proprietary computer of that time. As I was waiting for data to restore from tape, I noticed a small, white kitten that kept coming into the clinic. The kitten would come into the clinic for a bit, then someone would notice it, and take it outside. The kitten would wait until someone else would come in, and come in again. Around closing time it looked like the kitten was going to be booted outside for good, so I said to the staff member that I would take the kitten home.
Cat was quite hungry. On the way home, I purchased a cheeseburger and fed it to Cat, and she ate the whole thing. It was a foggy night too, and Cat rested in my lap as I drove home. When I got in, I put Cat in the basement suite, and went to bed.
My roommate, Doug, is really good with animals, and he checked Cat out the next day. "Cat has ear mites" was the first diagnosis, and he and Cindy (His girlfriend) took Cat to the local vet, where earmite medicine was provided. Now, THAT was an unpleasant task - putting earmite medicine in Cat's ears. What this involved was wrapping cat up in a sheet so that Cat couldn't move, and putting the drops in Cat's ears. Of course, Cat shook her head violently after the medicine was in, spreading a streak of ear mite medicine, earmites, and clots in an elliptical streak over everything. It was pretty bad, but after a while, the earmites were gone, and Cat was fine. Oh well, it was a basement rental suite anyway.
Cat was a lot of fun. We had obtained a helium-neon laser, and we would shine the beam around, and the cat would chase it. Cats do have a sense of object permanence, because when the beam went under the door, and we shut it off, Cat would still look for the item under the door.
Although there was an open hole for a cat door, there were never any bugs in the basement suite - as it turns out, cats kill bugs very effectively. I saw Cat pounce on a bug on the wall, and the mystery of no bugs and the walls being dirty was solved at once.
Cat also had this habit of sucking on people like she was nursing. Doug cured her of this by picking the cat up and licking Cat's face when she did this - Cat was absolutely revolted by this, and never sucked on anyone after this.
Cat had two litters of kittens, and they were wonderful - Cat was a good mother. Kittens are fascinating, and it's amazing how fast they grow and get into absolutely everything. Toilet paper rolls are completely destroyed by kittens - it's not like in the TV ads where the cats simply bounce the roll of toilet paper along - they really dig their teeth and claws into the roll, and soon all you have left are shreds of toilet paper.
I had to go away for a trip, and a good friend of mine, Greg, took care of Cat. He became attached to Cat (He had had pets all his life) and Cat became part of his household. I think Cat was better off - I had only fed Cat Tender Vittles and sometimes cans of tuna purchased at the 7-11, as well as supplying all the Purina Cat Chow she could eat, but evidently what Greg fed her was much better, as she had gotten fatter, evidently from having access to quality food.
Later, Vicki, (Greg's girlfriend at that time) became the keeper of Cat. Cat now was with one of her daughters, Sara Jane, and was given the name "Jennifer" Cat had attained an enourmous size, probably because there were multiple people who would feed Cat first thing in the morning since Cat had the uncanny ability to behave as though she had never been fed.
Greg moved up north, and Cat stayed with Vicki. I didn't stay in touch with Vicki. The last time I was over at Vicki's place was when I fixed an electrical problem with Greg's truck - Cat was still there, but getting older. I scratched Cat's head for the last time, and Greg and I went to get a relay for his truck. I never saw her again.
Ted Park, tpark@beer.org