Neo the Retarded Cat

Did I mention I have a retarded cat?

The movie "The Matrix" was real big at the time my wife and I acquired him and my daughter named him Neo, after the character in the movie.  Shortly after that we got an all black girl cat who named Trinity. 

Neo thought he was a dog when he was a kitten.  He had a little stuffed mouse that he would play fetch with.  I would throw the mouse the cat would go get it and bring it back to the point it would be irritating, because you would be done playing and the cat would follow you around and keep dropping the mouse for you to throw it again.

My bed room is at the end of the house and the door to the hallway is in the middle of the room.  The hallway runs right down the middle of the house.  At the other end of the house is the kitchen and straight line of sight out of my room used to be the side of the refrigerator in the kitchen at the other end of the house.  I would fold clothes in the bed room and play fetch the mouse with the cat between folding or hanging clothes.  I got to where I could throw this little stuffed mouse and bounce it off the refrigerator.  Thumditty, Thumditty, Thumditty, you could hear Neo gallop in a full out run down the hard wood floor across the length of the house. 

He would enter the kitchen at a full run and attempt to put on the brakes and slide into the refrigerator head first.  Now a person or a dog might realize that maybe I shouldn't run so fast since I can't stop before I plow into the giant white thing.  Maybe the cat enjoyed the sliding sensation followed by a good rap in the head.  Whatever the situation he would retrieve the mouse run back down the hallway and drop it for me to throw again.  I lost count how many times he hit that refrigerator but apparently he got further brain damaged through repeated blows to the head.  Bear in mind this repeated thrashing was all entirely self inflicted either through his absence of memory, no thought about action / reaction.

Once he was running into my bed room and made the turn coming in the door and jumped to the bed.  His front feet lifted off the floor in good fashion but before he could adequately push off with his back feet they lost traction on the hard wood floor and slipped in the direction he was headed, which was toward the bed.  He pretty much fell straight backward onto his back smacking his head against floor and with the momentum that existed slid under the bed skirting on his back.  This was way more amusing to see than to read about, and my wife and I both saw it.  I had never seen a cat slide on its back before, I burst out laughing hysterically.  I think Neo was embarrassed because he wouldn't come out from under the bed for a while.  My first thought was maybe he killed himself, so I peeked under the bed and he was right side up and moving.

He is by far the best cat I have ever had.  He is a true lap cat.  When I sit down in the evening to write and lean back in my lounge chair with my laptop computer in my lap, Neo is always crashed out on my legs sleeping.  He is needy like a dog in he will follow me around from the time I come home until bed time.  Most cats do crave that much attention or hang all over you like dogs do.  He is utterly retarded, is crazy for Q-tips, we have to lock them up and you can't throw any in the trash because the cat will get in there and knock the trash can over to get them out.  He likes playing with them for some reason.  He still chases the mouse and anything you even pretend to throw.  You can pretend to throw stuff all evening and he never figures it out that you didn't throw anything.  He looks and looks and when he can't find it, he will come back and you can pretend to throw something and off he goes again.  I love him dearly but my sick sense of humor won't let me stop messing with what's left of his mental faculties.

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