Meet Pepper

Pepper is our cat. Here is his story.

Pepper is of uncertain age and indeterminate breed.

Last summer, the upstairs neighbors rescued five kittens from the abandoned house next door. Two of the kittens were white, and three were black. Luckily, we'd only been married for two months, and Skyler (who is a dog person) was still in that give-my-new-bride-whatever-she-wants phase. Well this new bride wanted a kitten. (I've wanted one since I was eight, but instead of me getting a kitten, my one brother got a hamster, and when that died, my other brother got a dog. Whoever said the youngest child is spoiled has never experienced the pet politics in my family.) Also luckily, the neighbor was giving the kittens away for free, so Skyler was more inclined to be on board.

Originally, we requested a white female kitten. We got a black female kitten. She was so cute, though, that it didn't much matter. So little bitty she could fit in the palm of your hand. Ooo! (Skyler would probably remind me to mention that after the first day, I was ready to give her away. She was so tiny that I thought she would get lost in our three room apartment, so I followed her everywhere for the first four hours. It was exhausting, and I couldn't take it. And that is my best defense.)

We named her Pepper in honor of Pepper Potts, superhero assistant extraordinaire. 

And then we realized that she did not have the correct parts in her nether regions to jive with her being a her. Oops. Poor Pepper had an identity crisis at the age of (maybe) four months. And Pepper's namesake became good ole Dr. Pepper instead. Hopefully Dr. Pepper is actually a man.

So instead of that white female, we now had a black male kitten. 

Who likes to make trouble.

Like this.

Or this.

(It was supposed to be a literature paper.)

He likes to hide just about anywhere.

Including camouflaged in the laundry hamper.

Or my personal favorite, in the toilet sneak-attack position.

And he is currently sporting the ever-popular cone of shame.

Really the whole situation could have been averted if he didn't do what he did, but how do you explain that to a cat who eats his own vomit?

See, about three and half weeks ago, Pepper started spraying, as any male cat going through the cat equivalent of puberty does. That would not fly. I could have nightmares from the smell of male cat musk, it's that bad. So we got him fixed. At a clinic which apparently doesn't believe in giving cones to their patients right off the bat. Or perhaps we were too naive to ask for one. Either way, Pepper was left to his own devices after surgery. And those devices included licking a certain incision, which resulted in an infection, and suddenly there was infected cat puss on my couch cushion. Charming.

During the emergency vet visit that resulted from this discovery, Pepper was forced to endure the bad kind of temperature-taking. As if an infected bum wasn't bad enough. He gave me an 'I am going to vomit all over your pillow tonight' look that had me genuinely worried for a while.

Thankfully, he did not do that. Likely as not his cone got in the way. Though it's more of a saucer really, like Pepper's head is served up on a platter. My uncle suggested we started calling him John the Baptist. Too soon?



And that is Pepper's story. The very, very condensed version.