When my best friend and I decided to buy a house together, she had a dog and I had two cats. By the time we came to settlement, she still had one dog, but I had upped the feline ante to four cats. Having known me for twenty years, Cricket had the brains to draw the line right then and there. Which worked fine, until Henrietta came along.

Three of the cats have died during the last ten years that we've owned the house. Old age, disease and a freak accident took their toll. My cats have been rejects from ex-boyfriends, from shelters or found on the streets and they were all fantastic. There is no shortage of unwanted animals in America. *(For this reason, I beg you to either chose a pet from a rescue shelter, or buy it from a certified breeder. There is also an amazing site where you can look at an endless variety of animals that need homes at http://www.petfinder.com)*

As my cats died, I grieved and then took in other local strays. We even took in a ferral cat, as there is a freak in our neighbourhood who was threatening to poison all the wild cats around his house. So, one dog, two women, four cats.

Until Henrietta came along.

It started out as a good deed. A sweet-faced calico sidled up to me as I sat on the stoop one evening. By the time Cricket had returned from her walk with the dog, Griffin, I had established that she'd been seen on the street for a few days and nobody knew who's she was. She still had the stitches in her belly from being fixed and was very clearly not a street cat. We took her in, took photos and plastered the neighbourhood with them. No-one was biting.

The problem was, the little sweetie that I was now calling Henrietta, was. You could stroke her for a few and then....crunch!....hiss! scratch! The first time she got me good, my hand was so lacerated it looked like a paisley sheet that I had. To improve the shining hour, another cat named Nigel Nancyboy decided he hated her and enlisted the help of the dog, Griffin. This has resulted in Henrietta retiring to a safe spot on a fun-fur nest I created for her which she rarely leaves. She got rather large. Oh, and she picked up the feline version of biting her nails; she is chewing off large tracts of her hair. As I am one cat over my limit I have, since her arrival about two? three? years ago, been vaguely trying to place her. But she's not exactly the cat you'd bring home to mother.

I know a cat collector "Felicity". For years she only had two cats, Edgar and Isobelle. I lost touch with her and when I saw her again, she had in the vicinity of thirty cats. I kid you not. She even has gone as far as to liberate a litter from their mother if she feels that said mother is not doing a good enough job. Her boyfriend is either a saint or an ocean going nut. But Felicity would not open her pussy lovin' arms for Henrietta. Ohhhh noooooo. But I'm not bitter. Much. Like I said, the cat's a tough sell.