That's right, Dennis has now officially become a "crazy cat man". I knew it was coming, of course. How could I not notice his gradual decline.

It all started with him only grudgingly accepting Vino because he was a "scrawny little kitten", but before too long I heard him calling Vino his "little boy" and greeting him with "how's my buddy" when he thought I wasn't listening. Soon he became more blatant about it and insisted Vino should sleep in the bed with us.

Then he started mentioning things like we'd better stay happy together, because if we ever got divorced, he'd have to fight me for custody of the cat! When we decided to move abroad, he went to his employer and said we wouldn't be going to any countries requiring a quarantine and we wouldn't be flying with any airlines where we couldn't bring the cat into the cabin. He happily paid hundreds of extra $$$ to ensure Vino's safe and comfortable trip to Thailand and even drove all over the city in order to find him the best, largest, most luxurious Sherpa bag.

Once we got over here, he was immediately dismayed at the state of the cats that run the streets here and always feeds them scraps when we are out at a restaurant. We recently went on a short trip to Malaysia, and were eating at a restaurant again. There were many scrawny cats around and he quickly lured them over to our table with tasty tidbits of BBQ Barracuda. We had three cats and one kitten surrounding our table! Dennis ate most of his mashed potatoes, vegetables and salad, but for some reason decided that the Barracuda wasn't to his liking and put his whole plate under the table for the cats! And he was talking to them, urging them on to eat the fish. When it was all gone, he made for *my* fish and when *that* was gone, he was even considering grabbing an abandoned plate from a nearby table, but unfortunately the waitress cleared it away before he got the chance.

We got quite a few strange looks from the staff and the other people there. (By the way, it wasn't a fancy indoor restaurant, it was an outdoor BBQ pit type place). But Dennis, who is normally very reserved in public and hates drawing attention to himself, didn't care because he was feeding the poor wittle itty bitty kitties....

So, has he become a "crazy cat man" or what?

Copyright © Britta Wilson
July 2, 2001