Another older essay. I’ve had a change of heart since I wrote it and now have two cats that I share my home with. They are a source of joy for me, but they still don’t replace my beloved Morph.

For seventeen years I had a cat. His name was Morpheous and he was born in April of 1994, a tiny ball of black fuzz who could sit in the palm of my hand. Actually, his first name was Lucy-Furr, but after Lucy lived with me for a week I noticed that she had balls. A name change was definitely in order! At that point in my life I was reading Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comic book series, whose main character is named Morpheus, the lord of the realm of dreams. So Morpheus seemed like an appropriate name for a creature that liked to sleep as much as my cat did, except that I spelled it with an extra letter, an o, and the misspelling stuck.

Morpheous was an obnoxious kitten. He liked to climb up things and meow loudly until someone would rescue him. The most irritating thing about this behavior is that upon rescue he would immediately climb back up again to begin the process all over. You had no choice but to get him down again, eventually. He would outlast you. I promise. I wanted to pop his little head off. I’m pretty sure the reason that infant creatures are so cute is to ensure their survival.

All cats seem to have annoying litterbox habits; such is the nature of the bathroom and, well, any living creature. Morpheous’s special brand of litterbox mayhem included pooping over the edge of the box and scattering litter throughout the entire house. I ended up buying an enclosed box that handily nipped the edge pooping in the bud (kind of punny, in a sick way). The litter scattering, I’m afraid to report, defied every trick and trap that I created to stem the crunchy tide. In the end, I gave into compulsive vacuuming. This served as a tiny bit of revenge, since the vacuum scared the bejesus out of my cat.

Sleeping in, a hobby that once occupied vast amounts of my free time, became a thing of the past. Morpheous liked to eat breakfast, even though I would rather wait until brunch at the earliest. He ordered his meal by standing on my chest and yowling into my face. If the noise did not alert me, his breath would surely do the trick. Sometimes I could delay the drudgery of crawling out of bed to feed the little shit by throwing my pillows at him. But even that only worked as a snooze button at best, since I quickly ran out of pillows. If I was in a particularly foul mood, I would get up to retrieve the pillows, climb back in bed, and start over out of spite.

Despite the years of madness, and in later years enduring his senility, I find myself missing the warmth and weight of his body on my head at night. Morpheous was an unusually loyal cat, and would greet me at the door. We enjoyed curling up together on the sofa while catching a movie or reading a book in the evening. When I was sick, he would stay by my side all day. Morpheous seemed to know when I was hurt or sad, and his purring always calmed me down.

I would be happy to endure the kitty litter and obnoxious behavior if I could have him back. You see, he died about a year ago. It was kidney failure, which I hear is pretty common for old-ass cats. Most people decide to get a new pet after a while, but I just can’t. I know that I will never find another cat that will irritate and delight me in exactly the same way ever again. And that makes me really sad. Stupid @#&$! cat.