I'm not quite sure and can't quite remember every detail but this cat has had a very fortunate life. I remember one day in about 1994, coming home from work to find out that we now owned a grey cat. At the time I was living with The Springman. He went to a veterinary clinic for some reason; I can't remember what; and he come home with a cat. Springy doesn't even like cats so I was actually shocked to learn that we had one. The cat had nothing going for it, Springy not liking cats and me not liking grey cats. He said that she would be destroyed if he didn't take her.

I come from a land where dogs and cats are easy to come by and so we neither pay much for them or spend much on them. The dogs and cats at my parents house lived on table scraps and were supplemented with pet food. I have seen so many pets at other peoples houses screw their noses up at food because it wasn't up to standard, they were too well fed obviously. Our new pussycat was going to eat what she was given or she will go hungry. At the shop tinned dog food is far cheaper than cat food and so that is what I bought. I remember an incident where we had half a pizza in the fridge and was ready to be thrown. “I guess that will be your dinner until it is gone Cat.”

This cat has assumed many names over the years by her various owners. I had several names for her myself, some of these were, but not limited to:

• You

• Thing

• You thing

• Cat

• Kitty

• Pussy cat

Sometimes I would use an adjective as well, such as:

• Evil pussy cat

• Bad kitty

• Evil kitty

• Rotten thing

And then of course sometimes I used two adjectives and then her name;

• Bad, evil pussy cat

So as you could imagine, the kitty wasn't to happy about eating pizza but bad luck, that's all that was on the menu. In an aim to get her to eat the pizza, I put it through the mincer with dog food. People used to ask how old our kitten was but after a year or so we said it wasn't a kitten, it was a cat. It turns out that you shouldn't feed dog food and pizza to kittens because it stunts their growth.

It didn't take long for us to like her, she has some pretty unique habits. When she was younger she would sit outside the door while you were sitting on the toilet. After hearing some rustles in the cubical, a furry foot could be seen under the door, feeling about trying to touch you. Sometimes I would lean forward and touch that foot, other times I finished my business and got down on my hands and knees to see an eyeball and one ear under the door.

She particularly liked us when we had just showered. It might have been the smell or the dampness of our skin but as either of us sat on the lounge she would come over and smooch us sniff some more and if we sat still she would open wide and gently bite as much calf muscle as she could fit in her mouth. I would look down and say “Hey! What are you up to?” She would let go and return to smooching. Maybe we smelt tasty.

We all moved over to Springy's missus' house for a time and when we left the cat just ended up living there. She assumed a different name and from time to time I would visit and pet that bad ol' pussy cat. Years later it was a problem for her to keep the cat and asked if we could take her back. I was living in a place where pets were not permitted, I can't remember where Springy was at the time but he couldn't take her either. I rang around a my mate Neil said that he could take her. I visited him from time to time and was sure to tell the pussy cat that she was bad just in case she had forgotten. Oh, she had assumed a new name too. A few years later he told me that he couldn't keep the cat any longer and once again if no new home could be found, it would mean termination. So after ringing around Babette told me that she would take the cat back. I haven't seen nor heard about that evil, rotten pussy cat until recently. Sixteen years have passed since we first got her in 1994. Apparently the cat had some illness that would be expensive to fix and being so old she was deemed not worth $500 or so to fix. I'm not sure what was wrong with her but I did know that she suffers constant pain from arthritis and can no longer be patted down the back without hurting her more. Zane, Babette's son had grown attached to the cat and was prepared to pay whatever took to fix her up. She's poor old pussy cat who has had more brushes with death than I can count.