speck and bungee on the wall of fame

Two of the women I work with have devoted one wall of the cubicle they share to pet pictures. I believe this started with pictures of their dogs. Then other people gave them pet pictures. I have never seen the display myself, since they work in Charlotte and I'm in New York. But the
display includes several of our cats and former cats: Red, Cream, 18, Spiderman and Morgan. Apparently this includes brief biographical information; when I emailed pictures of the cats, I included some information about each cat, and the colleagues dutifully printed out the information and put it up with the pictures.

Yesterday I came across a picture of Speck and Bungee, the cats I had when I met Blair. After some IM back and forth, I sent a scan of the picture along with a brief bio. Apparently the biographical tidbits actually get people to stop and read.

Anyway, here is the picture and what I wrote about the cats.

I got Speck and Bungee from a shelter in 1995 after a broken engagement. Yes, they were rebound cats. I gave Speck his name because of the black speck on his otherwise-pink nose. Bungee got his name because she looked like she was bungee jumping when she chased a little toy that I got for them.

Bungee was very affectionate, always wanting to be on my lap. Actually, it was quite annoying; I’d push her off and she’d jump back on. Over and over and over. Speck wasn’t quite so demonstrative, but did have a habit of headbutting me in the morning when he thought it was time to get up. One morning when I tried to ignore him, he gave me a bloody nose with that head of his. Speck was (to date) the only cat I ever had who needed a therapist. The therapist prescribed an antidepressant, but that didn’t work out particularly well. The drug only came in pill form, and I had to mash it up and mix it with their food. As an aside, that meant giving them canned cat food. Yuck. Anyway, Speck could smell the drug in the food, and didn’t want it. So I’d give the cats their food with the medicine mixed in. Bungee ate it without concern (the therapist said it was OK if she ate it, even if she didn’t need the drug). Speck would sit by the bowl and stare at it. Then he’d glare at me. He’d get a bit on his paw and sniff it, then fling it across the room. He repeated that several times, covering the cream-colored walls in a mix of catfood and antidepressant. Eventually, he’d give up and eat a bit. I hated cleaning the walls afterwards.

So we went on like that. When I started seeing Blair, she went out of her way to get the cats to like her. That meant (among other things) feeding them. Speck got used to her easily. Bungee became intensely jealous. After Blair had moved in, Bungee would thank her for her food with an angry hiss.

When we moved into a house, Speck had trouble adapting, and kept getting out. One time, in 2002, he escaped and never came back. We had Bungee for another three years, until she suffered a stroke and had to be put down. We buried her in the backyard.