Meet Simon.

Damncat has some damn smart feline friends...

Ernest King was described as the most even-tempered man in the USN, that is, always in a rage.

I can't do that kind of thing with my kitteh, as he is a sweety-pie and looks it.

What are you feeding those poor Cats? Quit putting Lemon Juice in their Tuna and they'll perk right up.

Or is the problem with the owner? Perhaps their patience is just sorely tried.

We found Simon at the pound in Newport News. We were there to find a dog, but that changed when my daughter peeked into what looked like an empty cage.

He was scrunched back in the very rear of the container in a room full of dogs barking as loud as they could bark, a ball of matted fur and two impassive eyes staring back at us (like the look in the picture). 

The operators said he had been given up for adoption but they didn't know why. "What the heck," I thought and we all sort of came to the same conclusion at the same time--this cat needs a home. And so he got one. As luck would have it, our vet had seen him before when we took him in for his initial registration and exam with the doc...the office staff knew his previous owners but didn't know why they gave him up either. They also said they knew his name: "Twinkles."

This cat is NOT a "Twinkles." 

Later that night, he was sitting on the couch between my wife and I (a rare thing until recently--he's mellowed a lot) when he looked at me and I could see a pencil-thin line just above his upper lip that looked like Simon Legree's mustache. "Simon" sounded as good as anything.

Since then we've gotten a dog. "Schuster" made the most sense, even though neither of us are in the publishing business.