In Service to...

My roommate is the Kitty-est Kitty in the Whole Wide World. So I'm spoiled.

He seems to be all about preserving his dignity. I plied him with catnip once and immediately set out to find "people-nip." If only I could feel that good.

A few days later I offered him another catnip toy and he wouldn't have anything to do with it. He seemed to know it would make him silly and wanted no part of it anymore.

He's also impervious to cat toys. He sees one and sighs and looks up at me with that "I see the stick, I see the string, and the feathers attached to it don't interest me" look.

He's all about the dignity of kitty-dom.

Heavy weighs the crown of the Kitty-est Kitty in the Whole Wide World.

This doesn't mean he's not affectionate. He frequently pounces on my lap to get simultaneously scratched at the base of his tail and his tummy. He tries to hide his excitement -- like how David Vitter really tried to mask his affection for his dominatrix hooker who spanked him when he was wearing a diaper -- but I know he really likes me for my personality.

The Kitty-est Kitty in the Whole Wide World sometimes joins me in bed and curls up next to me. He's been a mostly indoor kitty except for when I lived in the Hollywood Hills and he'd go outside in the garden, jump the neighbor's fence, and get in touch with his inner Pillow Panther and capture lizards. When I moved out I discovered far more dessicated lizard carcasses under the furniture than any human should see in a lifetime. The guy was the lizard Himmler, now that I think about it.

He brought home a fledgling sparrow one day and chased it all over the house before deciding it wasn't worth the bother, curled up on the couch and licked his feet, and watched as I shooed the bird out the patio door. Again, the unspoken message from him was clear: "You have the opposable thumbs, and the broom. Deal with it."

One morning I woke up to find him toying with a mouse. I had to leave for an early meeting and decided to pick up the mouse and toss him in the empty bathtub and close the door after my roommate as he followed it in to continue this session of "enhanced interrogation techniques." When I got back a few hours later I opened the bathroom door and he trotted out without comment. (He usually comments.) In the bathtub was a mouse...nose. No other mouse parts; just the nose. I'm assuming it got too crunchy there at the end for him. Or got thirsty. (Did I tell you he prefers ice cubes in his water dish?)

Once I had to leave town for more than a week. I arranged for a kitty-sitter to stop by, clean the sandbox & stuff. She had a family emergency that drew her out of town but before she left she filled the dry-food dispenser and put out a bunch of water and extra sandboxes and he batched it for most of the time. When I returned I was properly chastised but he also seemed glad to see me.

Two days later I decided to fry an egg and turned on the stove. Turns out he'd pissed in all the burner pan on the stove. As soon as you turned on the heat, the entire place reeked of burning cat urine. As I was in the midst of the initial WTF? moment I looked over at the sofa where my roommate was calmly licking his feet.

I believe in the legitimacy of the aristocracy because I'm on staff of one who earns his living by being fuzzy. Sorta like Prince Charles.