This is Steve the Cat. It's a female cat who was named before being sexed. However, gender is an oppression structure and cats literally cannot care. Steve was born in the bushes outside my house in college. It was a split-level house with the downstairs bedrooms having ground-level windows, so my roommate had called us all in to gawk one day when a cat was having babies; we sat there like yokels at an aquarium.
A couple months later, Steve would always be in my parking spot when I came home, then started following me to the door whenever I came home with sushi. I fed it a few times, then decided to bring it inside because it was getting cold for the year. As soon as I did, we got a knock on the door from the people across the street.
Neighbor 1: Hey, that's my cat. Me: Oh, sorry. Here you go, you can have it back. Neighbor 1: Nah, nah, nah, it's fine, you can keep it. But, uh, that's a good cat. It cost me $400. That's a $400 cat. Me: Oh. Sorry. No, cats should be free. You can have it back.
At that moment, another person from the neighboring house came out.
Neighbor 2: What are you doing? Neighbor 1: They have my cat. Neighbor 2: Th- Wha-? You drunk, that's MY cat!
They ran back inside and came over to my doorstep about two minutes later with a little plastic dish. The following neighbor lines happened at the same time, overlapping.
N1: Yeah, I don't know, I've been feeding it, but I think it's a stray. N2: $400 cat! N1: I don't really care, so long as it's got a home. You guys can keep it. Here's the dish and everything. N2: It is a $400 cat!
At that point, one of my housemates heard the slight commotion and, being a nervous sort, ran to the front door and thrust two twenties into the faces of the neighbors and yelped "We don't want any trouble!"
N1 said something else like we didn't need to pay or whatever; N2 took it. At that point, I basically had to keep Steve. And I'm glad I did because she's a sweety keety meowmeow and I wuv her.
Aww how old is Steve the cat? She sounds very cuddly
