(Future note: The following was written around May 2010, but June 3, 2009, is more relevant to what I’m talking about. This is the day Slash, Blaze, and Quest were born. As I mentioned in another Thoughts paper, Quest is still with us, along with four newcomers. Who are these people that came to live with us with their strange names? They’re not people at all. They’re cats. We adopted them from one of my coworkers. In 2010, I created a blog for them called Three Girl Cats. It mainly featured the best photos of them as they grew up into cathood (yes, grammar checker, I invented the word “cathood”). This was the article I created for the blog to bring their story to life.)
Slash Darling, Blaze Shadow, and Quest Sequoia were born on June 3, 2009. The three girls came to live with Patti (my wife) and myself (me) in September 2009. We were going to take two of the six kittens that were born, but Patti had three names ready to go. Naming them after strippers was my wife’s fault, but I can only blame myself for translating the three names into getting three kittens. They are all tuxedo cats. Slash and Blaze were the original two we were going to take. Whenever Quest is bad, we remind her we could have not taken her and threaten to take her back. We never would, but don’t tell her that. We need the leverage.
Our nickname for each of the cats is “bad cat.” They take turns living up to it every day. If they are not destroying various parts of our house, they are keeping us up at night or getting into places they shouldn’t be. We first tried putting tinfoil where we didn’t want them to go, such as on the piano. We heard cats don’t like tinfoil. It was apparent this theory was wrong when we saw claw marks in the tinfoil on top of the piano. They were saying, “Your tinfoil is but a toy to me. I’m not afraid of your stinking tinfoil.” I guess I see them like little cat pirates. Next, we tried squirting them with a squirt bottle. This method worked well when we were witnessing their crimes, but was useless when we left the room or dared to leave the house. The last and most effective deterrent to their destructive behaviors was to gut the house of everything they could destroy. We cut off areas we couldn’t make destruction proof. It’s like making your house child proof, but worse. These kids can jump over those little fences that stop babies and claw whatever is on the other side.
Slash is distinguished by what looks like a mustache under her nose and her long fur. She looks like she’s frowning because of the white hairs above her eyes that are angled down. She meows and purrs. This will become apparent why I mention this when I talk about the other two girls. When we have had anyone over to the house, she runs away and hides. If you try to bring her out to meet people (as I did once), she will claw you like there’s no tomorrow. She started the trend of crawling under our covers when we go to sleep at night. She stays there most of the night. Now it is all the rage with the other two. She has begun a daily ritual of what I have called her “daily mauling.” Just before I take my shower, I pet her from head to tail. Her sisters have caught on and are coming around for their “mauling” as well. She is the definitive leader of the group.
Blaze is notable for the white tip of her tail and run everywhere attitude. She has much shorter fur than her sisters. Unless you pick her up, she appears to be smaller than her sisters. She’s a solid cat! Her belly has a fold in it. She’s too young to have a folding belly. I don’t know how she weighs so much. Like I said, she runs everywhere and jumps the highest out of her sisters. Unlike Slash, she has turned out to be the most sociable of the three. If you pet her, be warned you will receive calls from people in other countries complaining about the noise. Her purr is loud! Her meow is almost non-existent. We have heard her in a rare meow, though. She also does this adorable waving thing. She stands on her back feet and waves her front paws in the air like she’s trying to grab something.
Quest has an all-black face, long fur, and is quite photogenic. Her eyes stand out on her dark face. She meows quite often, but she never purrs. We have tried and tried to get her purring, but she will not do it. She can rub against us and we can pet her until our hands are tired, but we never hear a purr. She has this odd way of rubbing against my leg (especially if I have jeans on), placing her paws around my leg as if she’s hugging it. When the hug is over, she runs away. I have tried to capture it on video, but I can never tell when she is going to do it and she doesn’t do it as often anymore. (Future note: Quest is fourteen years old now. Over the years, she developed a purr, but she still doesn’t cover her poo in the litter box. She tosses the litter around, but it never seems to be where the poo is.)
Thoughts from Life 
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