Maggie Slepian

If you have read anything I’ve written for CS Coffee, seen my social media, or ever interacted with me, you know I have a Bad Pet.

If I describe my Bad Pet to people who don’t know him, they assume I’m talking about a massive dog hell bent on ruining carpets, tearing out window screens, damaging door frames, knocking over garbage cans, and eating two pounds of raw beef and throwing up all over the carpet, resulting in over $6,000 of new flooring. But no! This isn’t a mastiff or a great dane or a raging bull. This is Heisenberg, a cat who weighs 12 pounds and has objectively made my life a lot harder than it was before.

This tiny blessing came into my life in 2016. I was living in my then-partner’s house 20 miles outside of town, working remotely and feeling lonely. I drove to the local animal shelter one afternoon, toying with the idea of bringing home a low-maintenance furry companion to hang out with while I worked from home.

I poked around the cat room, petting sleeping long-haired cats, looking at litters of kittens, and playing with an older cat in the meet-and-greet room.

In the bottom row of cages, all the way at the back, was a black cat with his mouth pressed to the bars of the cage, screaming at the top of his lungs. I could see his little chest inflating and deflating like fireplace bellows as he screeched like a fire alarm. He seemed funny. I asked to see him. 

He was long and wiry, jumping on and off the carpeted kitty play structure, popping onto his hind legs to look out the window, and didn’t complain when I picked him up to scratch under his chin. 

I put him back in his cage and he started screaming at the bars. An employee poked their head into the room.

“We close in five minutes, did you want a cat?”

I’d heard about other animal shelters and rehoming programs requiring paperwork, references, wait periods, and questionnaires before they relinquished their charges to an adoptive home. And here was the girl in her blue smock, asking me to make what would turn out to be an impulsive decision and a multi-year commitment on the spot. 

Did I want a cat? 

Sure, why not. 

“Yeah, I’ll take the really loud one in the bottom corner.”

She looked surprised, then nodded and grabbed a cardboard carrying case. 

“We lowered the adoption rate for him, so he’s only $25.” What a deal! A long term commitment made in five minutes, and he was on clearance. 

She packed the yowling, long-legged cat into the box, then handed it to me and went to grab his file. 

“His name is Drake, because he was found in a ditch on Drake Road by Three Forks. He’s microchipped but no one was looking for him. He’s around a year and a half old.”

I grabbed the red folder with his vaccination information, his mug shot, and drove to the pet store across town to buy cat food, kitty litter, a litter box, and some toys. 

I put his box in my shopping cart as I walked up and down the aisles, his endless screaming and box-rattling drawing more attention than I wanted. 

The cashier rang me up, eyeing the rattling box in the cart. 

“You just get that cat?” She asked. I told her I had. 

“That’s a lot of cat.”

And he was! He still is! As soon as I let him out of the carrying box back in the summer of 2016 he beelined towards the bowl of cat food, nearly choking as he inhaled it, pushing the bowl across the floor before screaming for more. Within the next few days he had eaten garbage, ripped out screens, and terrorized our 110-pound dog. He screamed for food in the morning and evening, and got into the refrigerator, the dog food, and the pantry. He ate half a loaf of bread, knocked over a carafe of coffee, and clawed a hole in my favorite office chair. 

We went into food lockdown mode—we’d had the giant dog for years, and never had to deal with what this cat was capable of. We bought child-proof garbage cans that he opened with ease by standing on top of the can, pulling the childproof tab open, then hopping onto the floor and climbing inside the can. We had to store the dog’s food outside, and put a locking device on the freezer, which he figured out how to open from his perch on the counter. 

My ex stood there, running his fingers through his hair and looking at a loaf of bread spread across the floor. 

“You have a Bad Pet.”

There is no denying it. Heisenberg was a nightmare, and we had to change so many things about the way we lived. But holy cow, I loved him. I loved him right away in all of his disastrous existence. He was unbelievably sweet, climbing onto my lap as soon as I sat down, flipping his weird little chin upside down for scratches, and climbing onto my back for a ride. He was the most tolerant cat I’d ever met, never resisting being slung over my shoulder, held upside down, or tossed onto a ladder to climb into the loft. I got way too invested in online cat forums learning about his rare coloring (black smoke tabby!) and taught him to walk on a leash. 

A few years later, my roommate and I discovered Heisenberg’s love for clothing when we tentatively strapped on his bat wings for Halloween, expecting a battle of claws and teeth. But when we secured the little belly strap and the wings spread out, Heisenberg sat tall and regal, more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. He sat calmly on a chair for the entire party, looking around proudly with his bat wings outstretched.

I bought him little shirts and sweaters, costumes, a walking harness, and a denim dress. He wore them all happily, calming down so much when he wore clothes it was like magic. My friends over at LiteAF packs printed me a pack with his face on it for my thru-hike, and my friend’s parents had a portrait made of him to hang on my wall. He is printed on my coffee mugs and tea towels, and I have framed pictures of him on my bookshelf. 

I love him. And I know he’s difficult. I’m planning a two-month trip this summer, and if he was a normal cat, it wouldn't be a big deal to ask my roommates to feed him and clean the litter box for some extra money. But as it is, he misses me immensely when I’m gone, screaming at their doors all night for attention. He screams for food in the morning and starts screaming at 3pm for dinner. He needs to be fed his special prescription food twice a day, and he can’t be free-fed. Food has to be locked away, and my windows have special barriers because he tore out all the screens. It’s not like asking someone to watch a normal cat—it’s a lifestyle commitment. I wouldn’t trade him for the world, but Heisenberg is not an easy pet.

I avoid staying at my boyfriend’s house because I know Heisenberg will scream at my roommate’s doors starting at 5:30am. I have to board him for my upcoming trips because as kind as my roommates are, enough is enough, and I can’t keep asking them to deal with his neuroses when I’m not there. 

Heisenberg has made my life harder and cost me more money than I thought possible, but within this 12-pound trainwreck is my best little friend, who loves to wear turtleneck sweaters and perform tricks for pieces of chicken. 

I thought that getting a cat was the easy solution to having a pet without the challenges of a dog. Heisenberg has ruined my perception of cat ownership, proving that nothing should be assumed when you commit to caring for another living being. I don’t know what would have happened to him if I hadn’t adopted him, but I’m not sure many people would have kept him after learning how destructive he was. But I committed to him nearly seven years ago, and since then, he has been my favorite problem.