Mr. Rogers, the best cat in the world
This is Mr. Rogers, or Fred. Or Freddie, or Freddily Beddily, or Skrimbles, or Skrimbly, or Skrimbly Bimbly, or Skrimblors, or...
How He Came Into My Life
It was an overcast April day in Merritt Island, Florida. The year was 2020, and I had just moved there for work and therefore didn't really know anybody at the time. With the pandemic in full swing, that reality was unlikely to change. Suffice it to say that I was bored and lonely.
The house I lived in at the time had a rather large backyard, and the neighborhood cats liked to come and play there from time to time. The concept of cats just coming and going is a little magical to me. Where are they from? Where do they go at night? Why did they decide to come here, and what do they get up to during the day? It's like that scene from Fantastic Mr. Fox where they see the wolf off in the distance. I decided I'd try to make my life a little bit more magical by feeding them and thus hopefully befriending them.
Then Freddie showed up. I was sitting out in the back patio when I saw him picking his way across my backyard, so I opened the door and beckoned him to take some treats from me. At first, he was a little wary, but quickly gained courage at the sight of food and began nibbling away at my offering as I sat some distance away just watching him. Then, he completely surprised me by just walking right up to me and climbing into my lap without so much as a "how-do-you-do?". Immediately, he began purring, kneading my legs with his sharp, sharp claws, rubbing his face into my glasses, and drooling all over me.
To be honest, I was a little shocked, and a little nervous. Never in my life have I ever seen a cat go from maybe a little standoffish and shy to immediately lovey-dovey like that. Since his claws and teeth were near my face, I didn't want to make any sudden moves for fear of triggering a whirlwind of sharp pointy things and just let him keep doing things. In short order, I was covered with cat hair and drool, and since I was also slightly allergic to cats at the time, my sinuses were absolutely inflamed. But I didn't care. Cats indeed are magical creatures, masters of bewitching and enthrallment. From that very moment, he had captured my soul, though I feebly tried to resist for a little bit.
Eventually, I had to stop our little love-session because it was seriously getting difficult to for me to breathe. I let him back out into the backyard, then immediately went to the local Target to get some kitty litter and some cat food. My reasoning being that if he ever wanted to show back up one day and stay the night, I'd at least be prepared for him. When I got back, he wasn't around anymore, which made me a little sad, but not too much, since I had hope that I'd see him again someday. As I mentioned earlier, it was an overcast day, and by that evening, the clouds had gotten thicker, and it was pretty obvious that it was going to start raining soon. I was playing a video game, I don't remember which one, when very faintly, I thought I heard something a little unusual. I stopped playing and listened more intently, and there it was again: a soft, little meow. Then another one, and then another one. They were coming from my front door this time. I hadn't shown him my front door, and yet somehow he not only knew this was the same house he had visited earlier that day, but that he could gain entry this way as well. The sight of him just sitting out front with the rain falling around him, meowing to be let in nearly shattered my heart.
He spent that night with me in the living room, and that was pretty rough. Like I said, I was somewhat allergic to cats that time. It's the kind of allergy that eventually gets better the more you expose yourself to what triggers it, but that night I had gone from 0% cat exposure to 100% cat exposure, and I was struggling. My sinuses felt like someone had shoved two bath stoppers up my nostrils, and now my asthma was kicking in, making it hard to breathe through my mouth. And on top of that, Freddie insisted on sleeping on top of me, purring and slow-blinking at me while I struggled to maintain life. Writing about it now, I realize that I'd do it all over again.
The next morning, I let him back out again, thinking that he might be just a neighborhood stray or someone else's pet that had gotten lost and just happened to show up at my door, but he came back again that evening. He didn't have any tags or a microchip, and after putting up some facebook posts to look for his owner turned up nothing, he's stayed with me since. I was going to say that I decided to keep him, but I realized that as I was typing that out, I really had no agency in the matter. It was all according to his plans.
Though I named him Mr. Rogers when I first got him, saying "Mr. Rogers" all the time ended up being a bit of a mouthful each time. My sibling started calling him Freddie, and that name has since stuck, along with a million other mutations of that name.