I caught my roommate’s cat pissing in the bathroom sink. I turned on the lights and there was Jean-Luc (named after Patrick Stewart’s character on Star Trek: The Next Generation) hunkered down in the sink, taking a piss. Immediately to his left, sitting on the rim of the sink, was my toothbrush..

I was deeply upset. Jean-Luc had already proved to be much like his owner: skittish, impulsive, and neurotic. I didn’t freak out when he pissed on the plastic bag of clothes that I had set aside to go to the thrift stores. I didn’t say anything when my roommate announced, “Jean-Luc likes all the doors in the house to stay open.” And I only swatted at him when he decided to chew through the saran wrap and start licking the fresh batch of hummus I had just made for an office potluck. So when I saw the brush that I regularly use to scrub my teeth not three inches from a stream of cat urine, I went a little berserk.

Things were said that probably shouldn’t have been said. I may have threatened to put him in a lead weighted sack and throw him in the Willamette River.

I may have turned on the sink, causing a stream of cold water to instantly drench him. I may have yelled that there was more where that came from as he ran to my roommate in her room.

“Did you yell at Jean-Luc?” she asked.

“Yes. Your precious Jean-Luc was relieving himself next to my toothbrush in the sink that I wash my face in. Your cat is a fucker.”

“Don’t call my cat a fucker!” she snapped as Jean-Luc stared at me from her lap with a look of feline contempt. “It upsets him and I don’t want Jean-Luc to develop a low self-esteem because of YOU.”

fucking cat