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Sunday, March 1, 2015

The Best Worst Cat Ever

Saturday morning we woke up to find that our cranky old man had passed away in the middle of the night. Titus was our first cat, an enormous pain in the ass and had more personality than any animal I've ever met.


In the spring of 2007 Kev and I decided to get a cat. We'd both had cats growing up and thought that it would be a good idea. I was a proponent of going to the animal shelter and Kev wanted craigslist. Because cats are free there.... FYI, free cats aren't really free. 

He found a lady who'd rescued a stray who they estimated to be about 6 months old. She said his name was Elmo and couldn't keep him. We took one look at the cranky kitten with the crooked tail and knew that 1. He was coming home with us and 2. He needed a new name. We thought about Rocky (because I fricking love Rocky) but decided that he needed a warrior's name. Titus it was.


I always swore that Titus was once a man, reincarnated into a cat. I figured he wasn't that nice of a person in his previous life and got stuck as a cat to redeem himself. I'm not sure he did though, lol,


Titus always did what he wanted, when he wanted, everyone else be damned. When we were still at our old house, we were interviewing someone from Merry Maids to potentially clean the house. Titus walked by and she said. "Oh, I didn't realize you had a cat, I didn't smell anything. I'm really allergic". The minute she said allergic, he stopped, turned around, jumped up on the table and started rubbing on her. That cat was NEVER a lover, he could take or leave most people. I know in my soul that he heard her say she was allergic and went over on purpose. We just apologized and explained that he was a terrible jerk.


We eventually got 2 more cats and the dog and Titus could have taken or left all of them. He probably would have been happiest as an only kitty. 


He really wasn't a fan when we got Cleo and he started spraying all over the house. It was tough but we decided the only way to keep him was to transition him into an outside kitty, which we did got 6 months. Until the neighbors complained that he was terrorizing their cats. Sigh... So once again we worked on transitioning him into a 100% indoor kitty, which he'd never been. Needless to say, he wasn't a fan. 

I used to say that owning Titus was like having Stockholm Syndrome. He tormented you and held you captive but you still loved him.


He was absolutely fine until the very end. He was fat, ate a ton, used the litter box, jumped on laps, everything. Last Weds we caught him peeing on the door and we stuck him in the garage for a few days. He had a heated bed, down blanket and space heater in there, and I was sure he'd be warm enough. Friday morning I went to feed him and he was just laying on the cat bed. He looked a little lethargic but not sick. Friday night I mentioned to Kev that we should check on him and we didn't. I don't know if we would have been able to help or caught what was wrong in time but when we went into the garage on Saturday morning and saw that he'd passed away.

I always thought he'd outlive all of us. He'd be 35 years old and still wrecking havoc in the kitty nursing home. I thought that when he went he'd be found surrounded by empty bottles of booze, hookers and blow, or the cat equivalent.


Rest in Peace buddy, living with you was always an adventure. No matter how many cats we have in the future, there will never be another one like you. I hope you have lots of things to pee on and people to piss off in kitty heaven. We'll miss you T-man.

2 comments:

  1. aww. so sorry for your loss, he definitely sounds like an awesome (pain in the butt) cat!

    ReplyDelete