Chessie L. McCurdy, 1999 to 2018

We had to put our cat to sleep this past weekend.

Chessie was 19 at least. It’s hard to judge your cats exact age when she comes from a box outside Walmart.

When I was 19, I was volunteering with the high school youth at my church. One Sunday night, on the way to youth group, my roommates and I stopped by Walmart. Outside stood a little girl, probably eight or nine years old, and a big cardboard box full of kittens. She looked at me with sad eyes and said, in her authentic southern drawl, “My mama said we’d have to euthanize ‘em if no one takes ‘em…” So, despite being a dog person to the core and having a mild cat allergy, I peeked in the box. I chose a tiny calico who was quieter than all the rest. The little girl enthusiastically told me. “This one’s named Smashmouth!” to which I replied, “Not for long!”

And that was that. I was the proud-ish owner of a cat.

I named her Chessie, after the mascot of the Chesapeake and Ohio train company. My grandfather worked for various railroads and when I was little, there was an embroidered “Chessie Cat” hanging in my bedroom. I remember that when I took her home, she seemed so tiny in such a big place. Not really knowing what to do with a tiny cat, I made her a bed in my overturned laundry hamper.

Little did I know that the “quietest cat in the box” wasn’t the sweet, docile animal I hoped for. She was quiet because she was plotting.

Chessie wasn’t exactly “sweet.” My best friend gave her a middle name: Lucifer. It fit.

The veterinarian called her a “30 second cat”—as in, you better get in, get what you need, and get out in 30 seconds, or there would be blood. As a kitten, she loved to climb my leg like a tree, digging her tiny kitten claws into my skin. Once, out of spite, she peed all over a futon, completely ruining it. (Side note: remember futons? Oh, college.) That’s how I ended up watching TV on a pile of pillows atop a futon frame for nearly two years. When we moved into our first house, Chessie got fleas and we just couldn’t get rid of them, so I took her to get shaved. The groomer did warn me that the price was dependent on how many people it took to get the job done, but the $300 bill was still a shock. Turns out, Chessie had required at least three people to hold her down, as well as one young lady to hold a pencil in her mouth, to stop her from biting. She bit through the pencil.

Once my friends started having kids and bringing them to our house, we developed a handy saying: “If it’s brown (Chessie), put it down. Black and white? (Stevie, our other cat) You ‘aight.”

Chessie’s claim to fame was her toes: She had 32 of them, at least. When I took her to be declawed (I know, I know. Listen, I was like 19 years old. What did I know?), afterwards the vet said to me, “Did you know she has 8 toes on each paw?”—to which I asked, “Does that cost extra?” She actually had a couple more on her back paws that he must have missed, because when she got mad, she could locate those back claws in a second and she did NOT hesitate to use them against you.

Chessie and I did a lot of growing up together. She was the first pet that was solely mine, and let me tell you: Mistakes were made. Like how I fed her kitten chow for the first three years of her life, thinking she was still a kitten just like a three year old human is still kinda a baby. She got a HUGE gut that swayed when she walked. Or the time I tried to rid my tiny, Fort Sanders studio apartment of roaches by setting off one of those roach bombs. I didn’t realize that you were supposed to remove small animals BEFORE turning it on. It’s amazing we both survived my 20s.

Stevie, my other cat, came along when Chessie was about five. Stevie is her exact opposite: He’s sweet, he loves to be touched, and he loves all people. Chessie was not amused. When Stevie was a tiny kitten, she loved to rear back onto her hind legs and smack him across the face with her giant paws. It’s a miracle Stevie survived her!

Chessie lived to be 19 years old. Honestly, we have been expecting her to die for at least four years now. Every time I ordered something from Amazon, Russell and I would joke about saving the box to bury her in, because surely it was any day now. When she’d cough up a hairball, one of us would yell, “Go get the shovel! It’s time!” But she just held on. I think she did it out of spite. She was too grumpy and stubborn to slink off quietly.

Last week, she started having trouble walking. She stopped eating as much and started sitting very quietly in the sun, barely breathing. It was time. We took her on Saturday morning. It was over quickly with very little pain. We were both surprised how sad it was—after all, we knew it was coming and she wasn’t exactly, um, lovable. But it’s always hard to say goodbye, especially to a friend who has been with you from college till your late 30s.

So, goodbye Chessie. I will not miss you, crying in the hallway at 3 AM, over a wool mitten. I will not miss coming home to find your latest hairball. Every. Single. Day. I will not miss scrambling to stop you from scratching an innocent victim or throwing pillows at you in the middle of the night to stop you from fighting with Steve. But I will miss telling your stories, which have become our family’s lore. And I will miss the soft fur on top of your head, and calling you “Chessie Ann” when you were being sweet, which wasn’t often. I hope you are either in cat heaven, where you can eat all the soft food you want without having to share, or in cat hell, ruling over your minions. My bet is the latter.