Fat O

My roommate Alex has a cat named Fat O. Well, actually Alex calls her Bear, but I really prefer Fat O. See, when he got the cat, he thought it was a boy, so he named it Oscar. But then like two weeks later, after examining the under side of the feline, he realized that Oscar was a girl. So he decided to name the cat after his alma mater, the UC Berkeley Golden Bears. But given that he named the cat in the middle of the Pac 10 football season, my allegiance to USC forced me not to recognize the new moniker. So I stuck with Oscar.

After a few months of apparently over feeding the cat, it got pretty fat. So I started calling her Fat Oscar. Due to the fact that I think it’s annoying to have to pronounce more than two syllables anytime I want to yell at the cat, I shortened that to Fat O.

Anyway, I love Fat O. I don’t think I really love cats, but I seriously love the personality of this cat. I don’t think she acts like most cats; I’ve never lived with one before, but I have had many other cat-owners say her behavior is strange. Fat O will play fetch, actually bringing her little ringy bell back; she begs for food, but then refuses to eat any crumbs of the NutriGrain bar you offered her, which end up as a big mess on the carpet; she regularly stretches out by lying completely on her back with her feet in the air; and she loves to lick things. No, I mean, seriously, she loves to lick things. Herself, the couch, the kitchen floor, a person’s face when they wake up in the morning, the side of my laptop keyboard as I type, anything. When Alex goes out of town I usually open up my door (that she is scratching at) to let her in to sleep on my bed. Sometimes she keeps me awake at night by the sound of her licking my bedspread. You wouldn’t think it would be, but it’s actually quite loud. It takes about four or five kicks every five seconds or so in her general direction before she figures out that I’m hitting her because she is licking the blanket. And in the morning, as soon as my alarm goes off and she sees that I am awake, she tries to get me out of bed by pouncing on my face as I hit the snooze to desperately get nine more minutes of sleep. Yesterday I literally threw her across my room. (She landed safely, c’mon, she’s a cat).

I think Fat O might be the most dog-like cat on the planet. And I love her. I’m not sure if this means that when I get a pet of my own I would want a dog or a cat. I mean, I love this cat, but I think I love it for it’s dog-like qualities. So, do I love the cat or do I love the personality? Do cats really have identifiable personalities? Actually, I guess they must. It’s funny how you figure out stuff when you just start typing.

Anyway, so my ex-girlfriend often brought her dog Princess, a long haired Chihuahua, over to my house, and it was interesting to see the pets interact. Somewhat paradoxically, Princess has a remarkable number of cat-like qualities. So how do they get along? They hate each other. Fat O, outweighing Princess by an estimated 3 pounds, just kinda circles around the terrified dog with an overly annoying curiousness. The dog acts, to attempt to use it in a complete non-vulgar way, like a pussy. But I still really like the dog, regardless.

So I have no idea what kind of pet I would like. I love the cat, but I think I love it because it acts like a dog. And the I still really like the dog who actually acts like a cat. So, if I like the dogness of the cat and the dog despite the cat-like qualities, does that mean I would prefer a dog even though I love this cat?