Friday, November 06, 2009

Goodbye, Fat Louis

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It was May 2003 when we first saw you at PetsMart. Scared and in a cage, but still rubbing your head against the bars so you could be petted. We didn't realize just how big you were until we got you home. Wow! We decided that you were big enough, so we put you on diet kibble. You didn't eat for 3 days, and would just keep looking back and forth between your bowl and us as if to say, "Really?? This is it?" You finally gave in and that Christmas when we bought you a can of cat food as a treat, you wouldn't even touch it and went back to your bowl of diet kibble.

Not that diet kibble ever did you any good. You never lost any weight despite our best efforts and always had a waddle to your walk. You had a hangy-down stomach and got mad at us when we tried to pet it. You'd bite our hands - never hard, but enough to make us know that you would really rather have your head petted and to leave your stomach alone!

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You put up with those other animals, often reminding the dogs that cats, especially you, were really in charge. Never mind that they were so much bigger than you - that did not deter you from putting them in their place.

You always liked to be in the same room with us. You weren't much of a cuddler - unless it was cold, but you were never more than a foot or two away, perched on the back of the couch, laying near our feet, or just nearby. You tried not to look to obvious about it, but we noticed.

You put up with all the kids' antics and without a fuss. You would pose for pictures, get "dressed up", wrapped in blankets, cuddled with whether you liked it or not, you endlessly chased the laser beam, snuggled the catnip mouse, and you did it all without a fuss. Even when Hannah came home, you put up with her baby "soft" pats that weren't so soft.

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You loved to have your had rubbed and your ears scratched. You would purr so loud! We liked it, too. You fur was so soft and thick, even softer than it looked and it looked soft!

Oh you had your problems, too. Don't get me wrong! You made such a mess with the kitty litter box that we ended up buying a special box that you had to crawl into from the top to contain your kitty mess. You had a knack for finding the clean laundry and sleeping on it! You liked to sleep in the closet and get kitty hair all over the bottoms of our pants - which of course we wouldn't notice until we were in a huge hurry and had trouble finding the lint brush. You tended to kitty puke in some of the worst places, or at the worst times. (Did you really mean to do it at the foot of my bed at 2AM so I would step in it in the dark? Ewww!)

We don't know what you were called before you came to live with us, but I wanted to name you BoJangles. Keith wouldn't have it - it wasn't "manly" enough! So, Brutus it was. You got called many things besides that: "Cat!" usually after you did something you shouldn't, "Bad Cat!" when you got up on the counters, "Fat Louis" when we had some young missionary girls come to stay with us. We had been gone and were coming home to meet them, but they beat us there. They didn't know your name, so they dubbed you Fat Louis - fitting!, and "Fat Cat" truly a term of endearment.

So, all of this to say...we are going to miss you! I hated to see you go, but it was definitely time. That mean old cancer had just gone too far, and I couldn't watch you suffer. So, goodbye, Fat Cat. Thank you for all the good times.

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