Bingley in Burtonsville, Maryland

Purrful greetings! My name is Bingley, and I live in Burtonsville, Maryland, with my wonderful human moms, Kathleen and Barbara, and three other cats: Tiger, Darcy, and C.C. There is a current picture of me with C.C.'s story, so I decided to send a kitten picture of me. Wasn't I just the cutest thing?

In 2000, I started life in a storm drain along with seven male siblings, all orange like me. We and our mom were rescued by Terry. Her organization is called All Cat Rescue, and she lives in Gaithersburg with her husband and daughter and a constantly changing number of cats and kittens that she works hard to find homes for. Whenever Terry rescues a litter of kittens, she gives them all names starting with the same letter of the alphabet. We were the eighth litter (she had already gone through the alphabet once!), so she named me Humphrey.

One day Barbara and Kathleen came to pick out a new kitten. About a month earlier, they had adopted Darcy. Tiger, their adult cat, wouldn't play with Darcy so they wanted a kitty closer to Darcy's age for her to play with. My brothers and I decided to be skittish and play hard to get, so we hid under the couches and ran away whenever Barbara or Kathleen tried to pick us up. Even though Terry had other kittens besides us, Barbara really wanted an orange cat. (They're her favorite, but don't tell my adopted siblings that!) She seemed like a nice human, but I followed the lead of my brothers and pretended I didn't want to play.

One of my siblings, Hugo, seemed to Barbara to be a little less nervous, so she and Kathleen decided to adopt him. Barbara was sitting in a big chair while she filled out paperwork. I saw my chance to be adopted slipping away, so I quickly hopped onto her lap and curled up, purring as loudly as I could. She played with my ears (which I love), and I looked up at her, telling her to take me instead of Hugo. It worked! I came home with her and Kathleen that very day!

I am the biggest cat in the household (I weigh almost 20 pounds!), but I am the most loveable cat they've ever had. (I've overheard them say that.) Kathleen sometimes says I am like a dog because I follow Barbara around the house wherever she goes. Part of it is because Tiger and Darcy never did take to me, though I was adopted to be a playmate for Darcy. That's a girl for you! But now I have C.C., and we're great friends. (I like to bite his ears though, which he doesn't like.) We sit out on the deck together, but I have been banished from the deck during the daytime because I can catch and kill a bird that lands on the railing. It makes my moms very sad when I do that, but I can't help myself. I like to eat the birds' heads. And if a mouse gets into the house, watch out! He's a goner.

I am very happy to live with Barbara and Kathleen and C.C., and yes, even Tiger and Darcy. And I am lucky too that Terry found me first.

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