We've seen more feline action than a Christian in the Coliseum over the last few months, as the cat population of OurFlatville has unexpectedly doubled.
He also contributes to the MacBook overheating problem
The new arrival's name Striker, which goes to show that you can give the fluffiest little furball in the entire history of cuteness to an eight-year-old boy: he's still an eight-year-old boy.
I shall call him Lord Deathcrusher!
The kid in question is B*, and the whole Striker-centric business was our fault. B's entire family had been hovering on the edge of"Want a cat want a cat" for years, but Neutrino-exposure tipped them all over the edge. Even though the father's allergic to cats. Neutrino is that cute.
*"Posting other people's real names online" is right at the top of the internet Don't Do That list.
For a few months all was incredibly well, before the mother became allergic as well, meaning B had to choose between his cat and his own parents. Luckily Striker had grown beyond the "appallyingly cute kitten" stage by then so B was able to make the right choice. But since giving the cat away would mean the family would at least three heart transplants (and probably another nine before they stopped breaking every time they missed the little guy), we took him on instead.
They quickly reached the cat version of equilibrium - both of them up higher than us
The result is pure perfection. We love Neutrino and his biting in a way any student of Stockholm Syndrome could write a book about, but in the words of a visiting friend "Hey, this one's a real cat! You can stroke him and he doesn't try to amputate your fingers!" After some initial "trying to tear each other to pieces" struggles, things have settled down to a much friendlier "only occasionally trying to tear each other to pieces for fun*." Even better, Neutrino now needs all his spare energy to fend off the younger generation and is only one-quarter the complete-breaking-things-bugger he was before.
*NOTE: At 5 AM, the human and feline interpretations of 'fun' differ radically.
But it's not all buggers and battles. Most of the time they're fine*.
*That's a lie. Most of the time they are ridiculously adorable.
