Origin Stories: Mister

When I first met Mister, I had just lost two very dear cats to a previous relationship.  Mister was a gangly adolescent at the time, and he was playing hard to get, but he was no match for a woman who was determined to have a new buddy.  I moved into a new apartment complex in Columbia, SC in 1997, and Mister seemed to be living there, outside the building.  All the women in the leasing office were in love with him, and had already named him Mister.  (Sean and I like to play this game where we think of what we would have named Mister if he hadn't come pre-named...the top two contenders have typically been Clarence and Pamplemousse.  But I digress...)  Mister hadn't let anyone pet him yet, but one of the ladies there said he looked remarkably like a cat in a litter of kittens near her house, and she wondered aloud if he might have somehow hitched a ride to the apartments in the innards of her car.  

I spent several long evenings trying to gain Mister's trust, plying him with food and soothing talk.  Finally, one night Mister let me pet him.  Then another night, he let me pick him up.  So I whisked him home, got him neutered and all his shots up to date, and he and I became best buddies.

Mister and I went through a lot together in those several years before we met Sean.  We had one bad relationship where Mister learned to fetch because the guy didn't like cats and kept throwing Mister's toy mousie across the room to make Mister go away.  In  typical cat fashion, Mister didn't take the hint that he wasn't appreciated by this guy, so he kept bringing back the toy.  Needless to say, that relationship didn't last long. 

Mister also survived the Great Cat Lock-Out of 1999, when my family and I went to Arizona on vacation, and the guy I had charged with taking care of Mister and Mango got locked out of my apartment and had to call a locksmith to get in.  I had gotten an extra key made, but then managed to forget to test it before I gave it to him.  Turned out it didn't fit.  That was an exciting vacation.

But Mister has never questioned any of this, and has always been my buddy.  Mister would sit in the window every single day and wait for me to come home from work.  Even as I'm writing this, he is entwined around my legs, motor running loudly.  This is a thirteen-year-old friendship that has survived five new cats, countless foster cats, a broken jaw (another story), a new man of the house (Sean), five moves, a tropical storm, a snow storm and a coat hanger (see post about Mister trying to eat a coat hanger).  And probably about a billion other things that were big deals to him but that hardly registered to me. 

Mister loves it when I pick him up.  He usually complains about it, at least for a second, but within a millisecond, he's already purring and rubbing his face on my face.  Then he leans back, makes a big circle with his head, and seems to take it all in.  He gets a good, sweeping view of the ceiling from this new vantage point, but he seems to be grounding himself in the big picture.  I could learn a lot from that.  Mister and me, we're good for each other.  And I hope that we'll be privileged enough to be good for each other for at least another thirteen years.  Ceiling Cat willing, we will.