We got a new kitten a few days ago. We call him Conan (The Destroyer.) He likes to play.

Violently.

He’ll latch on to my arm with all four legs and dig his teeth as hard as he can to any flesh he sees. I’ll throw him off across the other side of the bed and he’ll just run right back and latch on to my arm again, digging his teeth into my wrist in the exact same place.

When he’s old enough he’s getting declawed.

Our three-year old girl cat (Corky) hates him and hisses at him at every opportunity, but she’s mostly afraid of him. I find that hilarious. Sometimes she’ll get brave and run up to him and smack him in the head with her (declawed) paw and then run away. He’ll just sit there and take it like a trooper without fighting back, but once he gets big I bet he’ll get sick of the nice guy act and then we’ll have a real show on our hands.

Before we got the kitten, I had never heard Corky growl before. It is a frightening sound. It will terrify you the first few days, and after that you just pick her up and you don’t care about whatever sound she’s making, because for the love of god you’re ten times her size and she doesn’t have claws anyway.

You’re supposed to keep a new cat separated from any existing cats you have until they get used to each others’ smells and the aggression melts away, but we didn’t see that happening at all, so we’ve decided to let them out together for supervised visits when we’re at home. The little guy shows no fear in the face of danger, and Corky’s fine as long as she doesn’t have to be around him.

We may be doing irreperable damage and somehow ensuring that they will never get along, but christ almighty we’re both gone all day and our time at home is too precious to worry about if these cats are ever going to fall in love.