From a cat named after Ted Bundy to an intersex tabby — queer students have interesting students.
The Aquinian’s features editor, Jacob Moore, spoke with four students about their interesting cats.
Brie Sparks’s cats Bundy and Ravi
Q: Is that Bundy as in Ted? I hope not.
Sparks: No, it is. He came to us pre-named. His full name is Ted Bundy, but we decided that’s too morbid. He’s deeply neurotic and has attachment issues. When [my mom’s friend] got him, she was very affectionate with him. Then she got a puppy and she had to focus on the puppy, so Bundy flipped shit. She said, ‘I can’t have this cat around this puppy if [the cat] tries to kill him all the time.’ So we got a cat.
Q: How did you get your other cat?
Sparks: [Ravi] tricked me. We went to a [pet store], and they sometimes have shelter animals. I was a 16-year-old. I went over and was like, ‘This cat is a cute fucking cat.’ She was purring and rolling around and giving my fingers little kisses. The second we got her home, she realized she could drop the act. She wouldn’t let anyone touch her. She was not mean but very reserved. She doesn’t like to cuddle. She’s very territorial.
Sparks: Oh, and she also thinks I’m fully a kitten. She hunts mice and brings them to me to try and teach me how to kill them. So my summer looks like waking up at 1 a.m. to the sound of squeaking, scooping this mouse into a tin Batman popcorn bucket, pretending to eat it, taking it outside and coming back into the house for her to check me over and make sure I had eaten my meal.
Taryn McCoy’s cat Rhea
McCoy: Her name is Rhea. She’s a Cancer. We don’t know exactly when she was born but based on her attitude, she’s definitely a cancer. I got her in April. She was only 10 months old and she was about eight weeks pregnant at the time. She was tiny. When we first got her, my roommate and I thought she was maybe six weeks along. She was ten weeks.
Q: What did you do with the kittens?
McCoy: We kept them for about 10 weeks. One of my roommates moved back to Saint John. The people that I babysit for took another kitten and then the other two went back to the SPCA. They got adopted by families, so that was very nice. I’m excited for that.
Drew Hudson’s cats Mozzie and Sissy
Hudson: [Mozzie is] in and out of the house. She’ll be gone for days on end and then she’ll show up and we’ll be like, ‘Oh, my God, okay. You are alive.’ She likes to drool when she’s purring. She spits everywhere, and it’s kind of gross, and you’re like, ‘Oh, okay. Thanks a lot for that.’ I’m pretty sure it’s because she has no teeth.
Hudson: I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to brush your cat’s teeth, but we never did, and because she’s an outdoor cat, she’ll eat mice. That wears down on the teeth. She isn’t missing a lot of teeth but she’s missing enough that it impacts the way that she salivates.
Hudson: Sissy was my grandfather’s cat. He passed away, so we took the cat in. She’s very cuddly. She’s super nice, just not to the other cat. She likes to stay inside and sit very close to the wood stove. She has a lot of fur, and I’m like, ‘You’re going to die,’ but whatever. Sissy meows a lot. All the time, you walk into the room, and if she’s in there, she’ll meow. It’s like, ‘Okay, hello.’ She’s very meowy.
Lauren Acorn’s cats Bob and Tigger
Acorn: Bob’s a little snuggle bug. I FaceTime him quite often, whenever I’m at school. He actually talks to me, like recognizes my voice over FaceTime. He meows back.
Q: Do you know what he says?
Acorn: No, not at all. He makes noises at me and I make noises at him.
Q: Do you mean you meow back?
Acorn: Sometimes, yeah.
Q: Did you tell me that one of your cats is intersex?
Acorn: Yeah, Tigger is. He’s a special little guy. He had an infection at one point and he had to have his penis removed, but everything’s rerouted to his butthole, which I think is so cool.
Q: So, you mean to say that he pees out of his butthole?
Acorn: I absolutely mean that. He pees everywhere, but that’s just how he is. He’s got severe anxiety, which I think is kind of adorable. I have severe anxiety as well, and I’m precious.
Acorn: He’s a special little boy. We only really found out [he was intersex] a couple years ago. He has diabetes and he’s blind, so he gets a lot of vet appointments. They had to check on something going on with his bladder, and they were like, ‘Oh, you know, this guy — he’s got ovaries.
Acorn: I don’t really know much about it. It’s just a fun fact I like to tell people. I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’ve got a special cat.’
