Campus Cat?

A Feline Friend Comes to BMC

Many of you have crossed paths with the small, semi-domesticated mammal in the perpetual tuxedo that spends its days wandering the Mountain and begging for scraps at the cafeteria door. The student body has become rather fond of the four-legged, pointy eared beast that has attached itself to our home. Names will not be named, but there have been tales told of the cat even spending a rainy night or two snuggled up in some brave rebel’s dorm room, only to be smuggled out again the following morning. For my part, I know our friend has cooled his heels in The Coffee Bank or the SUB a time or seven while I finished some last minute homework under his dutiful surveillance.

Who is this mysterious, dark coated interloper that has taken up residence on our campus? Sources wildly disagree. Some call the dark stranger Patches, others Squidward. I have heard him referred to as Oreo or Tux. Myself, I like to call him James Bond, due to his choice of attire, which resembles a dark suit with a white undershirt. There are even those that simply call him ‘cat.’

In an effort to get to the bottom of this debate, I attempted this very afternoon to contact the central player—the cat himself. Though I questioned him directly, the cat repeatedly refused to give any statement regarding his identity beyond a bored yawn and a dignified twitching of his left ear. Our furry friend, it seems, will keep his secrets…

Due to his refusal to cooperate with authorities, a ballot has been issued instead. The matter of the cat’s identity will be settled in a fashion that echoes the highest tenets of our beloved democratic republic—a ballot on twitter. The most common monikers for our whiskered friend have been gathered and put to the vote. Check us out on Twitter soon to cast your vote, and have your voice heard on a truly monumental issue.

Nicknames aside, what is the cat’s true place here? Is he really the new campus cat? It seems to me that one must ask themselves what makes a mascot. Is it something deeply symbolic and meaningful? Or did someone at some point just really like a goat with fancy horns, and boom! You have a Topper ram. I don’t claim to know, but it does seem to me that if enough people like our whiskered friend and just start thinking of him as our campus cat, he just might be here to stay.