The beginning:
I never knew when Sid was born, but I do remember the day I found him. It was in 1987, and I was living in Springfield Massachusetts at the time with Brian Field. We had some crummy apartment which was always cold, so cold in fact that I used to run the oven and all the stove burners for heat. By the time I moved out, I had curled all the cheap plastic tiles off the wall above that old, dusty oven.
The place was supposedly a two bedroom apartment, but we weren't fooled at all. It was quite obvious that someone had just decided to put a door on the living room, and call that another bedroom. What that meant was that the only place for me to hang out was in my room, which at the time consisted of a bed, a directors chair, and a dresser.
That's how I found myself one day at the mall, contemplating my first, and to date, only cat: Sid. I was hanging out at the pet shop, watching some kittens playing together behind a piece of thick glass, with a sign which stated: "Cats".
I'm not sure how long I stood there, I just remember thinking at the time that I had to make a good choice. I had never bought a cat before, but I knew from friends that cats can live a long time, and he wouldn't be something I could just UPS to Australia if I got bored with him.
One cat in particular caught my eye. He was jumping up and down on his brothers and sisters while they were trying to sleep. He would sneak around the cat toys and pretend to stalk them. Plus, he had huge paws, which at the time I thought might make him a pretty big cat.
Springfield:
I'm not sure how much I paid for Sid. I think it was something around 20 or 30 dollars maybe. At the time I recall that this was a lot of money. I almost didn't spend it.
Brian liked Sid. Bri was my roommate at the time. I think Sid's personality had it's conception in Brian teasing the crap out of him all the time. I used to screw with him too, so I'm just as guilty. I think those first few day's were hard on Sid. We didn't have any cat food, so Brian used to feed him devil-dogs, which were some kind of cheap ding dong knock off. We also fed him some random lunch meat, which didn't agree with poor Sid's stomach all that much. Needless to say, I finally got a clue and walked down the street and bought whatever cheap crap cat food I could find at the local 5 and dime.
Even with both of us giving Sid attention, Sid used to hang out with me a lot. I really don't know why. Maybe I teased him slightly more affectionately than Brian. All I know that is when it came time for me to move, Bri said I could keep Sid. After that, he was a one man cat.
That was a time in my life when all I owned, I could fit in my car and still see out the back window. The litter box lid wouldn't fit (some kind of catbox cover) so I remember chucking that in the trash and thinking "there goes 10 bucks down the toilet".
The truth of the matter is that Sid hated the hell out of the first 6 hours of that drive. All in all, I drove 25 hours straight through from Springfield Massachusetts to Prior Lake Minnesota, and that damn cat hid under my seat and howled for 4 hours straight. Maybe after that he got hungry, I'm not sure, because he came out soon after his 4 hours of making my life miserable and sat in my lap. He did that for maybe another 3 or 4 hours, looking quite pissed off at me, and finally made his way to the back window of my car. The car was basically a boat on wheels, wide enough for about 10 cats in the back window, but Sid went back there like he owned that window. There he sat for the rest of the trip, freaking out when birds flew by.
After hallucinating maybe the last 3 hours of the drive due to sheer exhaustion, Sid and I finally arrived at cat nirvana...a house with a yard, trees, and prey.
Prior Lake:
Sid seemed to settle into some kind of routine in Prior lake that summer-- he would kill things, and I would yell at him for it. He was pretty good at killing, and lounging, as you can see from the picture above. He would spend hours lying in the sun, or chasing dead leaves. Sometimes he would climb up trees, and then I would have to fetch his furry ass down, because he sure wasn't as good climbing down as he was going up. This was heaven for Sid, I think. The six months I suffered in agony living with my folks again was perhaps the best time of his life.
My parents lived next to a highway, and I spent many nights when Sid was out contemplating him playing chicken with cars. With those fears in mind, I once followed him at a distance to see where he went. I was impressed when I saw him take a tiny storm drain from one side of the highway to another. I quit worrying about the highway after that.
In true Brian Field fashion, I kept teasing the crap out of Sid, just so he wouldn't forget 'ol bri. We used to put Sid in cardboard boxes, and roll that furball down the stairs. He didn't like that much.
I remember getting this roll of film developed, the one with the picture above on it, and upon looking at them, hearing my girlfriend of the time saying "oh, it's all your cat." That was the first time of many that I heard "you love your cat more than me." out of some girl I was dating. Hell, girls come and go, but if Sid could keep out of traffic, he'd be around a while.
It wasn't long until my girlfriend was screwing some friend of mine-- so, scratching one girl, and one friend off the list, Sid and I packed our crap and moved to Minneapolis in anticipation of some College.
Minneapolis:
Sid seemed to make the transition to an inside only cat again quite well. It was a crummy apartment in Minneapolis, with my roommate Larry O and his brother mouse. I was lucky enough to get the smallest room imaginable, so, being the good father, my old man helped me build a loft in my room. Basically it gave me an upstairs and downstairs kind of living. It was probably the coolest living I have ever done. Sid used to hang out just as this picture shows, and whap me in the head with his paws as I walked into and out of my room. Sometimes I would climb up (that's the entry to the upper part that Sid is in) and wrestle the little fucker.
Basically, it was college life. I would dig change out of the living room couch right after inviting friends over to hang out, and once a week I would splurge on a box of macaroni and cheese. When things got really bad I would dig into a 2 pound can of peanut butter that the folks bought me for Christmas with a spoon. Sid, however, ate regular cat food. He probably didn't know much better.
Sid seemed fascinated with the bathroom faucet. He would sit in the tub for hours and watch that freaking thing drip. We had linoleum and wood floors, so he found it fun to tear hell around the apartment like a race car, sliding into walls and such. He also found it enjoyable to tear up and down the carpeted post that he used to go from the bottom of my room to the top part. He usually did that when I was napping, the little dirtbag.
All this time he never went outside, since we lived right down by the college. I used to watch him sit in the windows and look out, and would, on occasion, feel a bit of guilt on taking him away from the burbs. Sid had no idea that his world would be turned up side down by the introduction of a girl, and a cat.
Sid gets a brother:
Angie, my new girlfriend at the time, moved in and decided that she wanted a cat. Nietzsche was the name she gave him, and she loved that little furball to death. Sid had some adjustment problems, namely that I had other things on my mind at the time besides him. He really did not like Nietzsche at all, for maybe a month or so. He would literally push that poor little scared cat right out of the loft. He got over it after a while, and they seemed to settle into an uneasy sort of existence. After a few years, you couldn't get them apart.
It was summer in Minneapolis, and Angie and I spent some time walking the city, and hanging out in the park. Larry O's girl friend, Marcy, Angie, and I pretty much hung out that summer. It was a fun time. I seem to remember taking the cats to the park a lot.
Things continued as they do, until fall came around. Angie and Marcy were in college in Moorhead, about 4 hours west. Since I wasn't too excited about the U of M, and my crappy job, I packed it up and moved one weekend. I had more friends in the Moorhead-Fargo area anyway, so what the hell. We drug the cats, and whatever we could fit into a couple of cars, and found some apartment in Fargo.
Sid moves to Fargo:
Things were kind of hard for 3 or 4 months. We were broke, broke, broke. I remember arguing over whether we could afford a xmas tree. Apparently we could.
Sid got some toys. He liked this tunnel-like contraption, which had some cat nip sewn into it, or something. Sid had a yard again, and he liked that. He and Nietzsche spent some time in the windows. Angie and I took up stripping paint.
I started back in school at NDSU. Settled into the job of starving college student, cat owner, and having a live in girlfriend. This went on for some years. We moved 2 more times in that time period, and Sid spent about a year at Angies' parents house in Moorhead after Sid pissed me off one day scratching up my 800 dollar speakers. That's a year I'll never get back, I suppose.
I remember many nights trying to sleep, listening to those two cats race around the apartment. They weren't very quiet about it, either. We had wood floors again, and they seemed to take some sick twisted pleasure out of crashing into things, and racing around at 3 am.
Sid liked Fargo. He used to spend a lot of time outside. He loved being outside more than anything. I once saw him stalk a dog. It was interesting. He jumped out from behind a bush, took a whack at some good sized dog, and the dog ran down the block. Sid wasn't truly at home unless he had some grass underfoot. I just couldn't make myself keep him in the house. In the end, it killed him.
Colorado Springs:
In 1996 Sid was nine. I never did know his real birthday. I was living in Colorado Springs, Colorado with Jeff V, my girlfriend Trish, and my Brother Doug in a house we were renting. I had finally graduated college, and was attempting to drive my first company into bankruptcy. I was doing a pretty good job of it.
I remember it was the end of summer. The rose bushes that grew next to the house had given up all their girlfriend making smiles. Sid had spent the summer in the back yard, in cat nirvana. There were plenty of leaves worth chasing, and caterpillars worth pouncing on. He had been de-clawed 5 years earlier, so he had given up on bringing me dead presents long ago.
Sid used to be one of those cats that had to sleep next to you. Not really near, or around, but right there in your face. When I was single, that wasn't much of a problem, but having a girl in bed plus a cat made for some space issues. Consequently, I used to make Sid sleep out in the living room many nights that summer. He would come scratching at the door, then give up, about every night. It started to get to me, after a while. I started leaving the door open, and once again we shared some space. He had his spot on the end of the bed, which I would dutifully vacuum the crap out of once a week to get the cat hairs off of the blanket, and Trish and I were allowed our bit of room near the top. His deal was biting and jumping on my toes while I was trying to sleep. It was only cute when you weren't tired.
Sid was usually in at night. That's how it went. I'd go yell out side when it got dark, and he would run in. He was always good about coming when I was out yelling for him. One random night, I was coming in from something. There he was, waiting for me, right inside the house. He wasted no time in darting out into the yard. It was darker than hell, and he disappeared right away. I remember distinctly yelling out after him, 'you get run over, I'm going to kick your ass' or something.
Sid got whacked right in front of the house that night, by some random car. I found him the next afternoon, obviously dead for some time on the side of the road away from the house. He was probably dead 10 minutes after I yelled at him, as it went. Jeff V and I buried him under the rose bushes by the house.
Sid was the only cat I have ever had.
