Amber

I own a stupid cat. That's not a slander against the cat, whose name is Amber. It is a medical fact.

A Good Samaritan found Amber when she was just a couple of weeks old, comatose in a field, almost dead, and took her to a veterinarian friend of ours. He saved her, barely, but whatever happened to her in that field took its toll. He started asking around: Anybody want a brain-damaged cat?

He played us like fools.

Amber isn't cool and graceful like our other two cats. When she jumps, she's as likely to overshoot her landing as stick it. Gravity is always a delightful new discovery. She knows her name--about half the time--but never seems able to figure out where it's coming from. She's kind of an oaf and about half a beat slow, a trait often undetectable in a human but hilariously evident in a cat.

She's also not very good at grooming herself, which is unfortunate since she turned out to be a very long-haired tabby who hates being brushed. So once a year, in the spring when the weather turns warm, we take Amber back to our vet friend and he shaves her tangled, matted coat into a "lion cut." For a few weeks afterward she's the most pathetic, trembling, sorry, ridiculous creature ever born. Her bobble head is five sizes too big for her body and she's got a pom-pom stuck at the end of every extremity. The other cats tease her mercilessly--I hear them snicker.

Or perhaps that's me.