Batman: The Dark Cat

"Do you want a little black kitten?" my husband, Joe, asked. What a silly question! How could I say no to the offer of a free black kitten? I'm not known for refusing pets. That's why the highest number of cats I've had at one time is in the late teens.


A sergeant in my husband's squadron (my husband is a Staff Sergeant in the Air Force) found him on her way home one night. She opened the car door and he hopped right in. She said he got along famously with her dog, but her cat began setting about to murder the new kitten and make it look like an accident.


When Joe brought the kitten home I oohed and awwed over him and laughed at his cute antics. "He's soooo cute!" I exclaimed repeatedly. I think my husband was getting a little jealous. I certainly never remarked on his cuteness as much as I did the cat's.


Joe came up with a variety of creative names for the kitten, none of which fit my criteria for appropriate pet names. I praised his inventiveness but quickly said no to Poophead and Buttface. Nonobaddog was another suggestion I turned down on the basis that having "dog" in his name might confuse the poor thing. I didn't want to instigate an identity crisis, nor did I want to have to tell people that we named our cat Nonobaddog. The name we came up with - the name I came up with and he agreed on - was Batman. Batcat sounded kind of lame.


I guess Batman wasn't the best choice because now he thinks he is Batman, The Batman. He's under the impression that he can fly from one set of blinds to another. He thinks flies are meant to be destroyed, even if they are three feet above his head. He thinks he runs the household and Joe and I are his own personal Alfreds. My desk is actually his desk and how dare I sit at the computer and make all that clickety-clacking racket when he's trying to sleep on my fingers. Batman thinks that it's okay to bite people's ankles when they're half asleep and have a full cup of coffee in hand. Batman is the law in these parts, and don't you dare try to tell him otherwise.