I recently turned 31. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as I thought it would, mainly because I figured out that in three years I will have lived longer than Jesus. That’s quite an achievement, I think.

But birthdays being what they are, I received gifts. I got some cool things this birthday – books, DVDs, food and cake, but by far the best bit of my birthday was this: I was adopted by a cat.

Her name is Pablo Escobar, and she’s a violent little plaything. Pablo arrived in my life when we went to the pound to rescue her. Seeing as though the cat was a gift from Renee, I think perhaps that there was an ulterior motive behind the gift. I fear that she has presented me with this cat to figure out whether or not my new-found age has brought with it a corresponding increase in personal responsibility.

Pablo, it seems, might be like the caged canaries carried by coal miners in years gone by to detect noxious gasses. When the canaries were discovered dead, it was time for the miners to get out into the fresh air. I’m guessing that if Pablo is discovered dead, Renee will realise that I am, indeed, hopelessly and irredeemably irresponsible.

But owning a cat has taught me a few things, which I’d like to share with you now.

Cat shit stinks. The only thing that will stop cat shit from stinking up a tiny apartment is an operation to remove my adenoids. I’m not entirely sure which particular chemical compound it is in cat shit that gives it it’s own unique scent, but it’s a pervasive little bugger, getting into the curtains and carpet. I was lucky – Pablo came housetrained, which means she only ever shits in the house.

Every part of me is now a target. The tiniest twitch is enough to get Pablo excited beyond belief, meaning that trivial actions that used to be performed on the couch, like smoking a cigarette or scratching myself in that ‘special’ place, now need to be done behind locked doors – preferably at least two of them.

Watch where you walk. Walking through any doorway in the house means taking an enormous risk. You can rest assured that there’ll be a small furry bullet, armed to the teeth with claws and… teeth, I guess… ready to attach itself to your lower limbs in a primal frenzy of pain and death. I have taken to wearing trout-fishing waders around the house. These oversized rubber pants offer the perfect protection from Pablo’s insistent gnawing and clawing. They have the added benefit of being silent, which means that I can occasionally get up from the couch without being set upon. As a downside, they’re rather hot and unwieldy, being difficult to remove in a hurry. I can, however, pee in them and no one but me would ever know, save for a faint sloshing sound as I walk.

Cats complain. In fact, cats complain more than little kids. But they complain about really weird stuff. Pablo complains about her food, which is the best stuff money can buy. Her bowl will be loaded with 30 grams of chickeny or beefy goodness, but she’ll sit there and stare at it, yowling mournfully, leaving it untouched. Then, when she thinks I’m not looking, she’ll eat a cockroach or lick her own butt. I don’t get it – surely 60 cents worth of chicken meat tastes better than bugs or cat rectum.

Cats love to sleep. Sadly, it’s mostly in really inconvenient places, such as my lap when I need to pee, or on my face when I need to breathe. Somehow, in the two weeks that Pablo has been living at my place, we’ve managed to get our sleep patterns diametrically opposed to each other. When it’s bedtime for me, it’s playtime for Pablo, which means that whenever my toes poke out from the end of my quilt, they get eaten. Aside from a low-grade perpetual fear that I will, eventually, run out of toes and never play soccer again, it means that I’m not getting enough sleep. Which is why it galls me so much when I see Pablo asleep in the middle of the afternoon. I’ve taken to waking her up whenever I can, in the vague hope that she’ll sleep through the night. It’s a hopeless cause, though – cats mostly come out at night… mostly.

Cats can be spiteful. I hate to anthropomorphise, I really do, but cats have long memories. I accidentally trod on Pablo’s tail just a couple of hours after she came home with us, but she seemed fine with that at the time. It was only yesterday, two full weeks since the incident, that payback arrived in the form of a hairball on my favourite seat. She looked so smug when I sat on it, and even more smug when it took me fifteen minutes to realise that something below the seat of my pants was badly awry. I’ve presented her with the dry cleaning bill, but so far she’s refusing to pay it. I think I’m going to need to call my lawyer.

Cats love to plot. Occasionally, you’ll catch a cat plotting – it’ll look for all intents and purposes like it’s asleep, but one eye will lazily open half a millimetre and that frightening hunter’s glint will shine through. When I see Pablo like this, I am sure I can hear her thoughts: “As soon as you’re asleep, I’m going to eat your eyes. They’re soft, like jubes.” The trick is, of course, to stay one step ahead. That’s why I’ve poked out my eyes already, and hidden them. I’d tell you where, but I caught Pablo using my computer this morning…

You’ll be pleased to know that Pablo and I are working out our issues – of course, I’m happy to let Pablo think that she’s the boss of the house, when I know clearly that I’m in charge. Of course, she’s no doubt thinking precisely the same thing about me.