On First Time Cat Ownership

This is Jenson.

He currently has kitten milk on his chin. Jenson is a male cat of indistinct breed, above average coat shine and below average ability not to fall off things backwards whilst trying to eat his own tail.

We have had Jenson for about four months (I think. He thinks too. He seems as bad at remembering birthdays as I am). This means that my total time as someone who owns a cat has now reached a peak of about four months.

Jenson is having to adapt to someone who has never owned a cat before. For instance, when I shout 'fetch', he looks at me as if I am talking Klingon. Or dog. When I shout 'get him' and throw him out of the door in the direction of a cat who has invaded my garden, he looks at me with something approaching disdain and goes back to sleep. I haven't actually done the last one yet because he's not allowed out but I am not ruling out trying it in the near future. He'll soon learn.

Equally, I am having to adapt to first time cat ownership. One thing I have noticed is that the pain is greater from teething cats than from teething dogs. Here is my arm. Jenson is in the background, trying to decide whether he is a panther or not.

This is what my arm happens to look like this morning but really, it could be a picture of my arm on any given morning since Jenson arrived. It could also be a picture of Jenson on any given morning since he arrived. He contemplates whether he is a panther or not quite a lot. This is a picture of my leg.

Sorry you had to see that, my leg is not pretty. This injury was gained when, in eagerness to extract Jenson's teeth from my arm I pushed him off the sofa and he attempted to stay on the sofa by ice-picking my leg with his built-in ice picks.

It's not all bad. This is Jenson's favourite toy.

This is Jenson trying to decide between my hand, his favourite toy and watching the washing machine spin round.

It is very difficult to describe Jenson's favourite toy as anything other than a rat. This has led to various instances of high-brow humour in which phrases like 'Jenson, get your rat off the bed' and 'Jenson's been playing with his rat for hours' are now commonplace. I am sorry to say that we have not yet worn the Jenson's rat jokes out. Nor has Jenson worn his rat out through too much play.

It is also not bad when you have an hour or two off work and Jenson shows his appreciation that he isn't on his own this morning by coming and sitting on your keyboard. I don't really care that it has taken me much longer than normal to write this, because I have a deep, satisfied purring emanating from my laptop, where normally it only makes strange and unattractive clicking noises.

In a world of clicking laptops we all need a Jenson.