The tale of the Happy Cat

Happy Cat’s adoption tale is a long story. He was found as an underweight, balding kitten running around the Virginia Tech campus in 2002. He was about six months old and looked like he had been a stray for most of his life. My sister, Nikky, and her then boyfriend discovered the skittish little Maine Coon-looking cat and took him home. They already had another Maine Coon and the two looked like they could be brothers.Happy was originally named Jinks. Well, he was originally named Zinc, as my sister was studying mining and minerals engineering at VT. But one of her professors couldn’t pronounce Zinc, so his name changed to Jinks. But he was not a Jinks. We originally just called him the Little One. Haris, the other Maine Coon, was called the Big One. It worked.Eventually, we needed to come up with a new name for him and my mom decided on Happy.  He was such a happy cat. He would love to play with grumpy Haris andAfter Nikky graduated, she was too busy traveling and working to take care of him, so he went to live with my parents. I always loved visiting the house as Happy always was always affectionate and loving, albeit, incredibly skittish, to people. He lived up to his name.I went off to college and didn’t see him for long stretches of time. But he always remembered me and loved to snuggle and get attention whenever he could. No matter how long I had been gone, when I settled into my computer chair, he would come over and get his pettings.For years, we never heard him say anything. No meows, no cat noises, no hissing, nothing. We thought that he might be mute. But one day, my mom was making tuna salad and after opening a can of tuna fish, Happy suddenly discovered his voice. He meowed and meowed until I came to see what in the world was making that noise. And it was Happy, calmly requesting to acquire some tuna fish.When I went away to college and my dad went away for work, Happy’s favorite person became my mom. He is now so enamored with her that he will follow her around the house. Whenever she comes home from work, he will get up from whatever various nap he was in the middle of and come down and see her. He loves to sleep on her bed and snuggle with her when she’s doing her word puzzles or Sudoku.Even after years of being a cosseted house cat, he is still very skittish and easily frightened. He hates plastic bags and will run in terror at the sound of one crinkling. He avoids the outdoors at all costs. Happy will sit next to an open window and push his nose up against the screen to smell all of the outside smells, but usually the door can be wide open and he will walk right by it. He knows what a harsh place the outside world is. With one notable exception, he hasn’t been outside since we adopted him.Right now he lives the easy life with lots of sleeping, snuggling, basking in sunshine spots and nibbling on his kitty kibble whenever he’s hungry. He has been such a good and loving cat and he didn’t cost us a thing. We took him in when he needed a home and someone to love him and he has become a faithful companion and snuggle buddy. Of course, he’s still a cat, so he will still bite you when he decides that he’s done being petted.