Some cats are smart. Some aren’t so smart. Some owners have preferences for their furry purr beasts to be one way or the other. I found, over the years, that I loved being the parent/co-owner of fat, not-too-bright, simple tuxedo cat.

I first met Christine’s kitten, Pobedonostsev – or Po for short – only a few days after she brought him home from the Humane Society in the summer of 2008, a month or two after I’d graduated from the UW, and a month or two before I began my two year stint working in Jordan. At that point, Christine and I were cautious friends – we had dated casually in the fall and spring of 2006-2007 but I had – I hope gracefully – ended the informal relationship when I learned that she was planning to do a study abroad in Chile. My previous relationship had been long-distance for a time and I wasn’t a huge fan of distance, and I knew she had another suitor interested in her anyway – so she and I tried to retain as much of a friendship as we could over Skype during my senior year, her junior year, and when she returned, I hung out with her and her boyfriend from time to time, but of course, there was a bit of distance between us.

A sunny afternoon, she texted me and said she had gotten a kitten. She was subletting only a couple blocks from DoIT, the UW’s central IT group where I worked at the time, so after work, I stopped by, just for a few minutes, to meet the little guy. About 3 months old, he was curiously exploring her little apartment, jumping in and out of a tissue box on the floor, and generally being cute the way kittens are. Christine seemed tired. I didn’t know at the time – she told me years later – but he was apparently not a good nighttime kitten and meowed all night and she wasn’t even sure she wanted to keep him.

Fast forward a little over three years later and suddenly, I’m Po’s new step-dad, dating his mother. By this point, he’d acquired a slightly older brother (by about 9 months), Bert the orange long-haired tabby – smart, sly, and extremely possessive of his new mommy – and Po had become a Beta Cat; subdued and quiet, and shy around new people. I was such a “new person” to him, and I thought at first that he and I would not get along, as he would slink away and hide from me whenever I’d come by to visit.

But then…I discovered the diamond in the shy rough of this now-pudgy, plump housecat. With Bert having claimed Christine as “his mama” and often nipping and batting at Po when he tried pathetically to cuddle his mama, the former only child, poor simple Po was flummoxed. Perhaps because I generate large amounts of body heat or equally likely, because he had no other human option… Po began placing his bulk on me. Gingerly at first, always silently. “I require a lap because I am lonely and need companionship but this doesn’t mean I have to like the fact it is you and yours and not my mama’s.” Of course Christine felt terrible that Po had become a beta cat, and often tried to encourage him to stick up for himself against Bert, and cuddled him whenever she could, but Bert was a little shadow that had glued himself to her. Sometimes if Bert had fallen asleep on one side of her, Po could finally creep in and cuddle up against her other side without the abuse.

One of my favorite early memories of living with Po was probably around 2012 or 2013 or so. He was visiting me at my first house in Madison that I lived in alone at that time. Until that point, both cats had been getting exclusively dry food. We were still post-collegiately frugal with money, dry food was cheap and could be kept in a feeder machine. But she knew wet food was healthier and closer in texture to what a “wild cat” would be eating in terms of prey animals. Now, up until this point, ever since Bert had moved in with him, Po had been… almost silent. No meows, no trills, no caterwauling. He would sit, stare at you watchfully, head cocked with interest, but silently. But now, for the first time – the crack of the can lid. What’s this? His ears tilted forward. The dish was put in front of him. He sniffed it, took a tentative bite. Silently, he snarfed it down as fast as he could. This was incredible. How could he have missed out on this his entire life? A few days later, Christine was out and I was entrusted with the task of serving the cats their new daily can of wet food. I cracked the lid, and stopped when I heard a sound behind me. Po was staring. Leaning forward. “Mmmm….” he said. “What’s that Po? You like wet food?” I asked him. “mmmmmMMM!” emanated from his throat. And again. “MMMMMMMmmmMMM!” and then finally, like a crescendo bursting forth, he put a paw forward, plaintively, staring intently between my face and the can I was holding…”mmmmmMMMMM…MOH! MOH! MOH!” The years of silence had been broken. He’d finally found something worth shouting about. And in the derpiest, least-practiced/melodic sound possible. The phrase “MOH!” or “moh?” became an inside joke between Christine and I for “anything which is highly desired or prized” and “is this thing something that should be highly desired or prized?”

Another habit he developed around then – or at least, that he showed to me – was his curiosity around bathtubs. After I’d shower, he’d lurk around the door, watching me towel off. Then he’d come and sit at the edge of the bathroom. Then finally, one day he worked up the courage to give a tentative…licklicklick at the water stuck to my leg hairs. This became a common morning tradition; he’d hear the shower and charge in, sometimes jumping up on the edge of the bathtub between the cloth ‘show’ liner and the plastic inner one and pace back and forth, waiting for me to emerge so he could vigorously lick water off of my legs. Such a weirdo. When the tub was dry, he’d sometimes toss a hair tie into it, then fling himself in after it and writhe and roll about, chasing the hair tie. I called this “a tub in a tub” (years later, in Panama with his skinny lithe little sister Arriba who enjoyed crouching in, then bursting through a fabric play cylinder for cats, I would refer to this as “a tube in a tube.”)

By the time Christine and I bought our condo and fully integrated our lives in 2019, Po and I were on good terms (after all, I did provide his wet food a few times a week when Christine had to work late) and while he still seemed like he’d rather be with his mama, he treated me to purrs and meows/mohs, and would rub his face on my leg if he wandered past me on the way to his dry food dish (a more food-motivated cat, I’d never met).

The pandemic seemed to break something in his simple little head. His parents were now at home ALL THE TIME… not at work, leaving him with his naughty brother alone. He seemed perplexed and bemused for the first couple weeks, coming around corners as I worked at my new “home office” and looking surprised to see me, like he expected to have the bed in the office to himself.

Then…a leap into my lap. A tentative, gentle paw extended upward to my keyboard. pat….patpatpatpat. Clicky, mechanically-switched full-size keyboard makes a lot of noise when typed on, compared with laptops. Interesting. A loud, rumbling purr emits from a throat. He proceeds to curl up into a ball on my lap for the next three hours, only periodically reaching out to sleepily pat at the keyboard again. He can get used to this. Yes, this will work out very nicely. Let him clear out his daytime schedule from this point forward.

His goofy, weird, but endearing behaviors began to come through. Never much one for playing with toys, he did develop an almost obsession with a simple cotton string on a plastic wand a couple months into the pandemic. Waiting until neither human was around, he’d then pick up the end of it in his mouth and then drag it out the house, emitting loud “MOH! MOH!” MRROWWW!” sounds… all while thrusting and gyrating his hips about. We called the string his Girlfriend.

Always a plump cat for almost all his life, he developed a habit of “mouth farts”… while being petted vigorously, he’d begin to writhe, puff out a cheek, and the petter would be treated to the excited sound of “pppffft! pppffft!” over and over again.

Another cute thing we could usually count on was his responsiveness to his lifelong nickname, Popo. He could be lying in a heap just about anywhere – inside a window frame, mashed against a screen, behind a door, on your lap, on the TV (back in the CRT days at least) – but if you said to him “Popo?” in a high-pitched singsong voice… the very tip of his tail would wiggle and shake. You could say it over and over again, and the body would remain still and sleepy… but the tail would let you know he’d heard you.

After 6-9 months of COVID seclusion and using my lap as his all-day nap-spot, Po decided that I was now his go-to human at bedtime too. As soon as he saw me brushing my teeth, he’d lean his bulk against the bathroom door frame and begin vigorously rubbing his scent gland on the frame and purring. When the sound of the electric toothbrush stopped, he’d run into the bedroom, leap onto the bed, and look expectantly over at me. If I had more things I needed to do, he’d still sit on the bed, and meow at me indignantly. When I finally would climb in, he’d immediately curl up – always on my right side, on the edge of the bed. Sometimes I’d put my arm in a curve on the bed, knowing that cats like being “in things”, and he’d more often than not see the “snuggle spot” and cuddle into it. Sometimes he’d possessively place a paw over my arm too. Then begin licking it. Bert wouldn’t allow Po to groom him; a mere Beta wouldn’t be allowed to lick an Alpha! So he got his licks out on his old man, right around bed time. He’d usually stay with me all night long, leaving only for his automatic feeder going off at 5:30, and then returning to curl up again in the same spot.

A less-endearing habit was his fascination with licking plastic bags. He seemed to have a sense for detecting them. Perhaps they have a smell that non-humans can detect. Sometimes in the middle of the night, 3-4AM, I’d be awakened (the light sleeper than I am versus Christine) by the sound of rustling…and crinkling. I would leap out of bed, find the closet door open a crack wide enough that he had wedged himself in, found a bag, and was furiously licking it with all the vigor he could muster. He was never offended when his prey was removed. He knew another chance would come.

Po wasn’t pleased to become a middle child last June when his baby human brother Lukas entered his life. We had a feeling he wouldn’t be. Cats in general don’t like change, or loudness – and a baby human brings both. Both cats thinned out as the months went on. Bert in particular irritated by the fact he had share his mother’s lap with a baby. Po still content to be on my lap throughout the workday and by my side most nights. He had a few bouts of vomiting two months ago, and stopped eating dry food around that time. Earlier this month, Lukas began crawling. I took this picture, which I found cute and endearing at the time, but perhaps was more foreboding. In fact, when I showed it to my brother with the caption below, he commented “this how cat horror movies begin” – the next day, while Po was having some wet food, Luke crawled up behind him and vigorously patted his back, not painfully hard but with with the joyful enthusiasm of a baby seeing a furry, warm moving big stuffed animal that now, at long last after 9 months of being essentially immobile, seeing kitty brothers but unable to reach them, finally getting to Reach out and Touch. Po wasn’t pleased (he tried to maneuver himself away from Luke but still kept eating) but as an almost-lifelong beta, it’s not like he hissed, swatted, or did anything aggressive.

We moved the cats’ dry food feeder and water dish to be out of Luke’s way, to a corner where they could be ‘blocked off’ by furniture. Bert is a couple months away from 19, and Po would turn 18 on April 16. They already were eating a lot less than they used to in their old age, not uncommon for senior cats, or seniors in general. Po seemed to get skinnier, very rapidly. For the past 3-4 months he’d been much louder and “talkative” to the point of being outright annoying. But now, suddenly… he was silent again, like he had been for his first 4 years until Wet Food Revelation. When he did speak…it was a labored, raspy “mrrrrr” that could barely be heard. When he walked, he swayed drunkenly. A week after Lukas began crawling, Po could jump into my lap every morning as I worked, like he had been doing for 6 years now. Two weeks after, he couldn’t jump anymore – he’d put his front paws up on me, look confused, and stare up at me, or just past me, until I’d lift him up to my legs. Later, he would sniff furiously at food and water, and try to eat and drink, then turn his head away and wander off after only a few bites or sips. His shoulders and upper chest area became gaunt and bony…while his stomach area became alarmingly distended and bulging. He couldn’t seem to get comfortable. We have had stairs by our bed for years after Bert lost the ability to jump, and Po readily started using those, but he couldn’t get comfortable. He’d lie on the bed next to my office chair, then crawl into my lap, try to curl into a ball, halfheartedly pat at my keyboard, then get up, curl on the bed again, then move to his windowsill pedestal that Christine’s dad had made for the cats. Restless.

We held out for as long as we could. As long as he could still manage a weak, but happy purr on my lap, and he wasn’t hiding from us like a cat on death’s door might (he still wants to be around us, just generally collapsed in a sad heap on the floor) – we thought he was still deriving some pleasure out of his life. But we didn’t want to wait for his life to become worse. We called Journeys Home here in Madison, and set the date. We cried. Po was laying on the nightstand, a new place he’d never wanted to lay before. He blearily raised his head and looked over at us as we sat talking about him, tears in our eyes blinking afresh every few seconds, then slowly laid it back down again. We love you, our old silly, not-too-bright Popo cat. Yes, we’re talking about you. It’s hard to imagine home without you after 18 years of you being in it.

This morning, he and Christine were snuggling on her side of the bed. He was purring for her, she said. He drank a few sips of water, and licked some baby food off a spoon. I put on a “cat video” with the sounds of birds and squirrels chirping. He slowly got up from being curled up on her nightstand (perhaps the hard solid surface felt good to whatever was ailing his tummy) and flopped into my lap. Purred a little bit. Then climbed up – with my assistance – right onto my keyboard, over it, and pressed his face against the speakers with the chirping, chittering noises. He fell asleep again.

That’s where he was when the home-visit vet came. Sleeping comfortably and deeply with wild animal sounds in his ears. We moved him over to a heated blanket on the floor next to our bed, with his String/Girlfriend next to him, and a candle. Christine read a poem. She got out the baby food again and he gave it a few gentle licks as the sedative went into hindquarters. He drifted off to a deep sleep doing what he always loved best – eating food. A few minutes later, with the second shot administered into his back leg, he peacefully passed on as we wept over him.

We brought Bert into the room to see his brother off. He stared at him, and at us. We encouraged him to give Po a sniff. He licked his leg a few times, then bit it thoughtfully. Sigh… Bert….c’mon man.

He’ll be buried near his “uncle” 93, Christine’s childhood cat, back in Cedarburg. Thanks for being such a good, sweet, and simple Po-cat for your step-dad, Po. You were the perfect amount of smart for me. I’m going to miss you so much.