Bonk was born with 4 other siblings (Laurel [Fatty -- our name], Hardy [Freckle-Nose -- our name], Blackie, & Chicken Head) on August 27, 2001 in our basement. We rescued Tia from the pound nearly a year earlier after Mercedes died. She was curious why this Little Black Kitty was in our basement and what the little squirmy things were in the box with her. Little Black Kitty's protective instinct kind of kicked in and she chased Tia away from the box full of her babies. I say "kind of" because Bonk was still feeding when she jumped up and he fell off and hit the concrete floor! After keeping a close eye on him to make sure he was okay, we determined that the event warranted his name. Laurel & Hardy went to live with Shannon's aunt (who gave them their decidedly better names), Blackie stayed with us because I told him we would keep him, Bonk stayed with us because we thought he might be brain damaged, and Chicken Head stayed with us because he's Chicken Head (a Denis Leary reference)!
I remember being excited to watch the distinct personalities emerge from these squeaky little babies, and, boy, did they!
Although Bonk was his name; Bonkie, BoBo, Bonkie-Baby, Bonkie-Belly, Bubba-Bonkie, and probably others, were just fine with him. (From Destination Truth, Shannon would sometimes call him Fangala-Bobo.)
I don't know when it happened, but Bonk became MY cat. I love all of them, but he and I had some kind of special bond. He would often sit at the back door and watch me leave and show real excitement when I would come home. If I was gone too long, he would show definite concern.
Sometimes, while sitting on the love seat in the living room, he would crawl up and sit on my chest so that I would have to support him with my arm. It made him so happy. It also made him happy to make me move my laptop over and over again.
He would follow me to the bathroom and "guard" me.
He would ALWAYS pull at the water dish, often spilling it. We had even put it in a larger brownie/cake dish to try and curb this behavior. Never got what that was all about.
If he didn't get his way, he would give a little "shnoof". It was almost worth annoying him just to get that.
All three boys that stayed with us have some sort of weird fetch/toy thing. Blackie likes water bottle lids, hair scrunchies, straws, (and since Bonk left us) a glove(?). He will bring them, drop them at your feet, and wait for you to throw them and he'll fetch them and be ready for another go. Chicken Head used to do this with a specific, mostly pink water bottle paper wrapper, but that bottled water no longer exists and he seems excited to see the labels wadded up, but won't really chase them anymore. Chicken Head likes to go into the basement and find Shannon's clean underwear and yowls with a pair in his mouth all the way upstairs and into the living room or bed room. (Yeah, I don't know either). Bonk never did any of this. If he found a roll of paper towels he would shred it like it threatened to take his shrimp. And, I don't remember how we found this out, but, he LOVED packing straps. The plastic kind that come on big packages that you can tear into strips. I must have brought something home from the store with one on it. I remember when I was pulling it off, he got the big eyes and sassy whiskers, so I gave it to him. He yowled and carried that thing around and would bring it to be thrown, and would prance around and jump on it, and wave it above his head, it was crazy.
I could pick him up and carry him, belly-up, like a little baby. The other cats won't really tolerate it.
He would jump up and "follow" in front of me when the TV in the living room was turned off because that meant it was finally bedtime. He would usually sleep near my head or with my arm around him, and when he was feeling particularly needy, he would paw at my chest because I wasn't positioned just right for him to snuggle up.
He loved treats, and soft food, but, God did he LOVE shrimp!
I'm sure there will be more, but I needed to write some of these down.
