Mister Grouchy Pants

On Saturday, my brother moved to Los Angeles with his psychotic cat. This photo of our mom with Hitch sums up Hitch's personality pretty well. She's recoiling in terror, and if you look closely you can see the band-aid on her arm where he bit her earlier. Hitch, meanwhile, has the truculent "You feel lucky, punk?" look that he gets when he's about to attack.

He doesn't always get that look -- often he strikes without warning. See, some cats are friendly. Some cats hide under the furniture and hiss when people visit. But Hitch looks innocent, sits on your lap, waits until you relax, then tries to take your damn hand off. The one person he adores is Skander, who can manhandle him without risk. Mom and Pazit, Skan's girlfriend, were over at his place on Thursday helping him pack, and they both yelled "No! No! Don't do it!" when I looked like I was thinking about petting the cat. Skander scooped him up and said mournfully, "Hitch, look what you've become."

Skander and Pazit had me tearing up with laughter when they described a recent visit to the vet. Hitch was a keyed-up version of his usual self, biting and slashing and hissing, but the vet wrestled with him without ever dropping his cutesy-cheerful, Mr.-Rogers-like demeanour: "Oho! Mister Grouchy Pants! Looks like somebody didn't get his coffee this morning, ha! ha!" Skander says it was like a Saturday Night Live sketch.