So... there's this cat...

I have no clue where it came from or who it belongs to. All I know it that it's decided that my mom's home is its new home. It's been hanging around for a while- last time I was home about 5 weeks ago, it would show up on our screened-in porch, surprising my brother, myself, or anyone else that would step outside.

It's a very very friendly cat, and pretty young too. It follows my brother and I around everywhere we go.. It's even gotten in the habit of walking right into the house when we open the

door. Heck, I went to leave my house earlier today the thing hopped right

up into my driver's seat and just looked at me like "Well, what are you waiting on? Let's go." This caused me to take extreme measures and put the cat in our back porch before I could leave.

It's a funny cat too.. It tries to climb everything.... my leg, my brother's punching bag... One of the funniest things I've seen is opening our door to the garage and see it crawling up the screened door.

The weird thing about this whole it that this has happened before.....

Several years ago- I can't remember exactly how long ago it was- there was this dog.. It started hanging around our house too... It would come through a broken screen on our porch and sleep out there. I remember it was winter time, so feeling bad for the poor thing, we put an old comforter out there for him to sleep on, and shortly after that we started leaving food out at at night for him too...

We called him Homeless, and he was our "not dog."

And so it went for about a year. We had just sold the back acre of our property, and the people that bought it built a house there, but conveniently forgot a fence.. So, in essence, we didn't have a real back yard for a long time. That meant Homeless could come and go as he pleased, and there wasn't much we could do about it because we were totally against chaining the poor dog up all day...

Despite our neighborhood being a relatively safe and undisturbed place, dogs were still in danger of being hit, so that thought always worried us. Luckily, one day a woman from our neighborhood came to us, and told us that Homeless was visiting her house too, and staying in her yard, and she just loved him. She decided to keep him..

Of course, at the time I was about 10, so I thought this horrible woman was stealing our dog, but looking back, I'm really glad she did.

That's the thing about my family... they're not really "pet people."

Don't get me wrong, we all care for animals.. In our family, though, we just didn't have the time or money to commit to animals like a lot of people do. Additionally, my mom has a no-animal policy in her house, which doesn't help much either. Plus, for many years of my life, I was terrified of dogs... Not sure why, I still refuse to watch Cujo...

Weirdly enough though, I've developed a love for dogs over the past year or so... I hope to one day have one of my own, and it will definitely be allowed to hang out in my house.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm looking forward to being a "pet person."