Meet Obie.I've had Obie since he was 4 weeks old, when my friends found him on the side of the road while they were canvassing for Obama. One of his eyes was completely swollen shut, and he could fit in the palm of your hand. Of my hand.
His favorite past times are sleeping on my keyboard while I'm trying to write a paper and watching the toilet flush. He learned how to open our bathroom door and loves to do it at the most inopportune times, like as soon as you get in the shower. He loves water, and has no problem being in the tub while the water's running and then jumping back into my bed, soaking wet.
He has a Beanie Baby elephant named Toot Toot that he carries around with him everywhere, and if you throw Toot Toot down the hallway Obie will come trotting back with the elephant swinging in his mouth, plop it down at your feet and look up at you expectantly. He loves to take the fish magnets off of our fridge and leave them around the apartment. I once found one in the bathroom sink; I'm pretty sure he was trying to return it to the sea.He's had a hard time learning to be a cat. When I brought him home over winter break he met Sadie, our fat orange devil of a feline who hissed every time she saw him. Obie, who I had never heard hiss in his entire short life, started to hiss at everything, at random, and without reason. Even Toot Toot. He eventually grew out of it after a few weeks away from Sadie, but he still never meows, except to let out an awkward squeak when he's really upset.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I woke up this morning to a dead mouse in the middle of my floor. The initial surprise was that there are mice in my apartment, but then I had to wonder, where the heck did this cat who doesn't even know how to hiss and meow properly learn to hunt and kill a mouse? I certainly didn't teach him. Could it really be entirely instinct? It really makes you realize how much more adept our pets are than us. Obie is barely six months old and he can already hunt and kill his own meal. When I was six months old I gummed Melba Toast and had no control over even my bowel movements, let alone being able to feed myself.
At least I know the truth about the red laser pointer dot he chases all over the apartment...that idiot.
