Kirby

Yeah, we took the cat in. The vet pronounced him clear of dread diseases, we flea-dipped him and he has been wormed, vaccinated and otherwise violated by the feline medical establishment. Little mutton-head purred through the whole thing.

Come to think of it, the little mutton-head purrs constantly. It's rather unnerving, to tell the truth.

He also eats. Constantly.

When we got the Russian Blue, we named him "Hoover" because he used to suck up anything that hit the floor. In Hoover's late middle-age, his appetite has abated somewhat. However, he's still the one who will, literally, toss his food bowl across the laundry room floor to signal his displeasure at its emptiness and who will climb on top of the freezer to push the big bag of cat food onto the floor and thereby garner the admiration of his fellow kitty friends.

But Hoover doesn't hold a candle to this cat. This one will muscle all the other cats out of the laundry room and will guard the door with tooth and claw, until he eats every morsel in all four bowls. He tried to crawl into the refrigerator to get at the leftover lasagna. He licks the spoon rest on the stove. While I'm cooking. He will eat until his little kitty belly sticks out on both sides.

And then, this morning, I came downstairs to find him, face in the kitchen sink. He had an empty soup can wedged in the drain, and was dipping his front paw in to get at the suet and bacon grease I had poured into it after yesterday's cooking spree.

He paused as I entered the room, paw midway between the can and his mouth.

I regarded him with a mixture of pity and disgust, "Dude, you're sick. You need help. I mean, just look at you!"

He said nothing, but jumped out of the sink and under the table, leaving little bacon-scented splots of grease on my kitchen floor.

S entered the room. I held up the remains of the soup can grease catcher. "I'm starting to understand why they dumped him."

"I say we name this one Shop-Vac," he said, laughing.

K's face appeared around S's waist. "Nope. Kirby." she said, "We'll name him Kirby."

Welcome Kirby. I hope you don't eat us out of house and home!