Kidnapping the neighbor’s cat…

A few month’s back my girlfriend adopted the neighbor’s cat. This cute, lanky feline with a moustache started showing up in the yard, giving us all the googly eyes, bumping on our shins. He looked pretty thin, which made us speculate he was abandoned–there were some foreclosures in the area. So the girlfriend decided to buy him a little food…

Which increased his visits…

Which encouraged her to buy him more food…

And let him sleep with her at night…

Which I disagreed with because his white feet were always a dirty gray.

But “Charly” was starting to spend so much time with us that we wondered whether we were rescuing him or stealing him. We’d never seen him before and he’d never appeared in our walks around the neighborhood. I came up with a semi-dumb idea of buying him a collar. If someone owned him the collar would come off, he’d stop visiting, etc.

Charly showed up with a new collar the next evening. This one had a tag on it that said, “Oscar,” a phone number and at the bottom, “My cat.”

Who’s cat…a neighbor’s? My girlfriend’s? Mr. Big, the local bluejay’s? Seems the owner didn’t put much thought in what the collar should say, other than making clear Charly DID have an owner.

Girlfriend called the number on the collar. Turns out they were the neighbors right next door…obviously not much contact there. Seems the woman was pregnant with another kid (breeders) and was worried about that illness you can get from being pregnant and touching a catbox…or whatever that deal is. So she kicked all of her INDOOR cats outside.

Girlfriend told her Charly/Oscar was spending a lot of time at her place, being fed, sleeping on her bed. Neighbor didn’t seem to care as long as it was clear she didn’t own him.

Now we’re watching tv and there’s a bunch of feline whining at the door, a poor, starving cat suffering from neglect–or so he’d want you to think.

“Chuck wants in.” she says.

“Tell Chuck to suffer.” I say. “You’re paying the neighbor’s catfood bill.”*

But Chuck won’t shut up until I let him in, so down the stairs I go.

We were at Petco recently getting food for MY cat when we saw the machine that the neighbor obviously used to make the collar. Seeing how easy it was to make a custom nameplate, I couldn’t help scheming all the new collars I want to replace on Charley/Chuck:

“For a good time call 555-5555.”

“Don’t pet me.”

“I’m too sexy for my fur…”

“Chinese buffet–all you can eat for $7.99!”

“I need to hear more cowbell.”

“Sleep Train, your ticket to a better night’s sleep.”**

“Not anymore.” In response to the first tag’s, “My cat.”

“I work well with a nice cream sauce.”

*I actually haven’t said that yet. Blogging helps me prepare my next argument!

**ARGH! Damn overplayed mattress ads!