I never thought I’d say it …

I never thought I’d say it, but I’m a cat person. (Gasp)

I know, that puts me only one baby step up from being a spawn of the devil, but just hear me out.

I grew up in a “No Pets” zone. My dad was allergic to anything with fur and was emotionally allergic to everything else. My parents did concede at one point and gave me a hamster, but that was an abnormality. Thanks to this upbringing, I never even thought about having a pet that didn’t stay in a cage. It just wasn’t going to happen. I don’t like the hair. I don’t like the smell. I don’t like having to figure out where we’re going to stick it while we’re on vacation (to me, there was just something wrong about needing a pet babysitter in order to leave the house for more than a day).

Fast forward to marriage. My wife grew up with two cats and a dog. I don’t know if she ever planned on having an animal in the house, but she never really brought it up. However, when we were having trouble getting pregnant, I started to notice she was getting more and more stressed out.

(Tangent)
It really is hard for people who want to have a baby so bad and can’t seem to succeed, and all around them, they see teenagers who have a one night stand and manage to have twins. It just doesn’t seem fair sometimes.
(End Tangent)

I knew she loved her cat when she was little, so I surprised her one Saturday with a trip to the animal shelter. We were just planning to go look, but managed to find the perfect cat. Now, I’m going to say some things that may sound mean about our cat, but it’s the truth, and we love him for it.

Our cat is a special needs cat. He doesn’t jump onto window sills. Instead, he sticks his paw in the tracking and yanks himself up. He also plays fetch and loves to get his tummy rubbed. (Sounds more like a dog than a cat, right?) We keep him as a strictly indoors cat because we know he wouldn’t last a day out there. I always tell people that natural selection missed this one.

Anyway, to make a long story short, this thing had one moment of brilliance. Cats usually pick a person to idolize, and ours picked me. He knew my wife would love him no matter what, and somehow managed to figure out that if he picked me, it would improve his chances when he did something he shouldn’t.

It has now been several years, and I can’t imagine living without him. I know, I’m a big softy, and you all are probably thoroughly disgusted, but it’s the truth.

It helps that all the issues I thought were going to be a problem actually don’t exist. Our house doesn’t smell like a giant litter box, and I don’t have to pick hair off me all the time. He’s pretty low maintenance, which also helps. He goes in a box, and I don’t ever have to walk him. He doesn’t overeat, so I don’t have to worry about how much he’s stuffing his face when I’m not looking. He’s nice to my kid (if he wasn’t it would be a deal breaker). And lastly, he does some pretty cute stuff.

Moral of this post (that is entirely too long, and if you’re still reading, I probably owe you a candy bar):
Cats aren’t evil. As a former cat hater, I’m swallowing my pride and coming clean. Everyone has a prejudice about cats, but I think they’re missing out.