I used to have this cat

His name is Pongo. I had to give him away when I moved from Houston to DFW last year because the friends I moved in with for the first few months have a frequent visitor that is severely allergic. I'm still a little bummed out about having to give him away because he was chill as fuck. I gave him to a co-worker whose four-year-old daughter wanted a cat. That co-worker's brother is a veterinarian, and Pongo was over-due for a checkup that I couldn't really afford at the time, so it made it a little easier.

Anyway. This isn't really about that. This post is solely an excuse for me to share some pictures of this thing Pongo would do where he would stare at me from behind shit. I always thought it was funny.

This is how it would happen most days. After getting ready for work or wherever I was going I'd walk to the other side of the bed where my nightstand was with my wallet and other everyday things that I needed before I could leave the house. As I was putting things in pockets he'd walk up on the other side of the bed and just stand there.

He would do this more often than not.

Even when I was just lying in bed watching TV, he'd still have to stand there and stare at me over the edge of the bed for a few minutes before finally jumping up.

It wasn't always the bed though. Coffee tables were also acceptable forms of concealment.

And TV stands.

That one makes me laugh the hardest because I remember the day it happened, and it was the first time he did the creeping from that particular spot. I was vacuuming litter off the floor in the bathroom where I kept the litter box, which is why the litter box is out in the middle of the floor there. He never ran and hid from the vacuum, he would just go to the other side of the room and quietly judge me. It took me a few seconds before I realized he was there.

This day, I had just woken up a few minutes prior, and was having my morning constitutional. I only took this pic because he never sat on the back of the toilet before this, and I don't recall him ever doing it after. Also I took it becuase by this point I had already started collecting pictures of him staring at me from behind stuff, and figured maybe I counted as "stuff."

This time I was lying on the bed on a boring Saturday and he jumped on my back. Not something he'd never done, but it was still a rare occurence. Also helps the argument for me counting as "stuff" to hide behind.

Well, that's all I have. Now I wish I'd taken more pictures of him because writing this has been bittersweet. I got to laugh a lot remembering all this instead of just scrolling past these pics in my phone all the time, but now I miss him more than ever. He's old. I got him when he was 4, and I think he's about 14 now. I haven't kept in touch with the co-worker who took him in for me. I'd contact him, but I don't think I'd want to know if Pongo has died. I figure in a few more years I'll just assume so.

I've gone and brought myself down, so I'll share this last pic from when I'd had him maybe only a few months. He was also real big with the head-butting thing that cats do. I was messing with the camera on a laptop I had just got and caught this one just right. I miss my buddy.

Dammit.