Of Cats and Men

Last winter in Beaufort, we used to receive the company of a huge tabby cat on the evenings, whom we named " Gato Gordo" in Spanish, or " fat cat." This cat tried to make friends with my cat Kissy, but wasn't very successful at it, he did win my family's affection though. My mother and sister would wait for him to appear from the trees each night, as he ran from the road into the front yard, with his white, immense, paws thumping on to the humid earth, expecting his plate of food ready.

We, also, got a new visitor last month: a grey fat kitty that entered through the back door of the house and stole all of Kissy's tuna fish. I assume that cat's love hanging out at our Beaufort porch by now, or that Kissy, with her stunning good looks and female cat-coldness, is a magnet to them, who knows. Maybe we just buy really good cat food.

The difference between this tabby cat and fat cat, was that Tabby wore a silver collar with a phone number engraved in it. My Dad noticed this and brightly figured that the kitty was lost, and that there would be a worried neighbor looking for it. So after the second week of continuous visits to steal Kissy's tuna through the back door, Dad grabbed the cat and wrote down the phone number to call the owners.

Dad dialed, let the phone ring, and left a message that said : " Hello, this is William Drake, your neighbor. I am calling about a cat we found visiting our back yard. Wanted to let you know that the cat is well and eats plenty of our tuna."

The next day we received a call back from the neighbor, who left a message saying: " Bill, I am calling to let you know that the cat is ours and is on a diet. Please do not offer him any more tuna. He is fat enough already and I set him free just to see how far he can go to get his paws on some extra food."
Apparently, this cat can go as far as our back yard and Kissy's plate of tuna.

But it gets even funnier. Last week, mom found a small article with a picture on the Beaufort Gazzete about Tabby cat, only that ,this time, he got caught stealing dog food!
This is what the article stated:

" On the Light side
Tubby Tabby gets stuck in Beaufort
Beaufort, S.C-A 20 pound stray cat whose girth got him stuck in a pet door while trying to plunder some dog food was reunited with his owner Thursday.Owner Geoff Ernest said Hercules went missing 2 weeks ago. Jadwiga Drozdek found the cat stuck in the dog door of her home a few days ago and helped free him."
(Associated Press)

Apparently, Tabby cat managed to gain too much weight during his afternoon walks, stealing from the food of other pets. Hopefully, this incident will motivate him to start a real cat-diet.
Oh, and his name is Hercules!
The Cutness of it all...