Socrates has been with me since the fall of my sophomore year at UGA. My flatmate Tessa had her cat living with us and we had talked about my getting a cat as well. When we saw some people giving away kittens from a cardboard box outside of Walmart I picked out the small peachy fluff ball the other kittens were stepping on and brought him home. He greatly irritated her stately, proper, and also peachy, German-speaking cat Ketelbey by pouncing on him and gnawing his ears. Ketelbey would ignore this as long as he could and then finally swat the wild kitten off of his head.Socrates has been with me through 8 moves, the addition of another cat (Penelope), the addition of a husband (John), and two kids (Virginia and Horatio).
Unlike some other cats (*cough cough* Penelope) he used the litter box to a fault. One time I tried to train him to use a toilet. I was too cheap to buy the trays that go in the toilet and used a disposable aluminum baking pan instead. I put the flushable litter in the pan and hung it in the top of the toilet bowl. He used it. I cut a small hole in the pan. He still used it. I made a bigger hole. He was supposed to start moving his paws to the toilet seat. He did not. Finally the pan lost structural integrity and Socrates fell in the toilet. He pooped on the floor to drive home the point that he tried things my way and the experiment failed.
When I lived with Socrates in a small studio apartment in Tuscaloosa he was my protector. He started getting up on the counters, which he had never done before. I scolded him and made him get down. He gave me such a look! Then I found mouse scat on the counters. I had never seen the mouse because Socrates kept scaring it back into the walls. We went home for Thanksgiving and without cat or people food around for the mouse to eat it relocated. Maybe to another apartment. Sorry, neighbors.
Socrates made this last move with us to Whitewater, Wisconsin. He and Penelope rode in the back of the Subaru in the largest dog crate that would fit. I saw him a few times in the rear-view mirror, stand up on his hind legs to look out the window or over the seat.
He was already suffering from kidney disease (and, we suspect, cancer) when we moved and his health continued to decline. Over the last week he has mostly been living in Virginia's room, the only one with carpet, which gave him better traction for his failing hind legs. He died at home with his family around him. We buried him in our yard (the first yard we've owned) under a bird hotel, so he'll have lots of birds to watch. Life won't be the same without him, but we have been so glad to know him.
