About five months ago, my wife and I moved back from Fremont to Concord, as our old apartment complex was essentially being condemned and we wanted to get closer to Jeannine's family (and our comic book store).  On the first day we moved into our new townhome, I was up on the balcony and noticed a large cat walking through the adjacent parking lot.  The following day, I came across the same cat in our backyard, after which I did something monumentally stupid: I bought a cat dish and began feeding her.  After about two weeks, the cat had become a regular fixture in our backyard, and we realized that, while she was not feral and very domesticated, she was definitely abandoned.  So we took her to the vet to have her spayed, intending to name her "Bast", as every Lovecraft geek is driven to do, only to learn that "she" was in fact a "he", with a frank but no beans, having been previously neutered.  On the spot, we decided to name the cat "Colbert" after Stephen Colbert, as we figured the cat once had the same kind of "giant brass ones" the pundit of truthiness so often claims to bear.  He's lucky... if I had a moment or two to think it through, I would've named him something more appropriate to his cross-dressing perversions, like "Trannie" or "Queenie" or "Rita Cosby".

Now, this was all monumentally stupid because I am severely allergic to cat dander, but other than the fact that he might one day send me into anaphylatic shock, Colbert has been a quite pleasant roommate.  Sure, he's a cat, so by rule he's a bit of an asshole, but then as a Texan born-&-raised, I understand that condition.  No, most of the problems with Colbert have to do with our new abode.  He's an indoor/outdoor cat, and we've just been informed by the management that they have a strict policy that allows indoor cats only.  Jeannine and I have decided that we'll wait and see if the management gets really bitchy about it before we try to train Colbert to be indoor only (which would be healthier for him anyways, but may simply not be possible due to my allergies and his own temperment).  If that fails, then we might even be forced to attempt to void the lease and find a new place where we can keep him unmolested.  But there is no way in hell we're getting rid of the little guy, who I now consider a full member of our little family.