I like to think of myself as an animal lover. I come from a family that acknowledges the fact that we like animals way better than people. My parents were having a play date with my best friend's parents. His dad is allergic to lots of animals, so said best friend didn't grow up with pets. At all. My mom spent at least a minute bemoaning this.
Growing up, I was lucky. Not only did I grow up with a wonderfully dysfuncitonal family that made high school and freshman year of college very interesting...not only was I allowed a large amount of relative freedom (Curfew? What curfew? Not that I stayed out late often...or did anything to make my parents not trust me...I saved all that stuff for college.)...but I grew up with a plethora of pets.
There have been a total of 3 dogs (dogs are the most awesome animals ever, as long as they are not jack russell terriers, beagles, little yappy dogs, or dogs whose breed is notorious for being boring), many fish (my sister and I would give them first names, middle names, nicknames, and Hebrew names...I'm pretty sure the Hebrew names weren't actually Hebrew)--including one goldfish named Chuckie who lived for over 2 years and a goldfish who started out black-colored...we named her Black Bettie and my dad sang that song all the time. My brother used to have dwarf hamsters and my sister had a hedge hog and a ferret. We also have an African claw-toed water frog (one of the tadpoles my sister's 2nd grade class raised--she's about to start her freshman year of college), 2 birds, and a baby squirrell that my sister found and my parents took care of for a week before driving it to an animal rehabilitation/wildlife facility. When I volunteered at the Central Park Zoo, my parents would look forward to my bi-monthly texts about the animals. I would send pictures, or list the things that happened (snow monkeys having sex, tortoises having sex, a pigeon pooping on me). My parents appreciated it (not joking), and they are happy that they raised 3 kids who are ardent animal lovers. I've already decided that I want 2 dogs, a black female pug and a male German shepherd. There is a reason for the genders, a male shepherd, if trained properly, will be able to get along with a small female dog. Two male dogs will have dominance issues...same thing with two female dogs.)
But we never had cats. This is because my parents and I are allergic to them. (I'm also allergic to rabbits, small animals like that in general, and ESPECIALLY guinea pigs.) Though we have a German shepherd and if I was allergic to him, my parents might have kept him anyways.
There is another reason why we've never had cats. It's because they suck. Cats jump on EVERYTHING, have creepy eyes, no respect for you or your things, and they have supernatural powers. Seriously! They can jump ridiculously high.
I'm not denying the fact that cats can be nice and cute. I've just never been attracted to them. Cats generally aren't very affectionate.
Now for a history lesson. During the British Mandate, when Palestine (and after the 1948 war, Israel) was under British rule, there were a SHIT TON of mice. All over the place. So they brought in cats to take care of the mice. And it worked! But since there are no natural predators for the cats here, they've just kept breeding and getting all over the place. So there are tons of stray cats. And a lot of them are really gross-looking.
Except for one (and its sibling). It's a black and gray striped kitten. Not tiny, but still sort of small and delicate. It looks reasonably fed, not too skinny and not mangy. The cat lives on my street and sometimes I see it when I'm entering or leaving my apartment. I think the cat and I are friends. It's not afraid of me, at any rate. I'm not going to touch it--it's a wild animal--but if I can, I'll try to take a picture of Friend Cat and show you.
So that's that.
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