Frisky Having Her Way -

And when I finally give up on the left corner of the couch and sit on the floor instead, she will eventually jump down, walk a slow circle around my lap, and curl up with a deep, rattling purr.

Frisky looked at me, blinked slowly (the universal cat sign for "bless your heart"), and immediately knocked a pen off the counter.

She doesn’t ask to join me. She doesn’t meow politely. Instead, she sits exactly three feet away, staring at the spot where my thigh meets the cushion. She performs what I call the "Surgical Stare." Frisky having her way

When I adopted Frisky—a tortoiseshell cat with the eyes of a disgruntled Victorian orphan and the attitude of a rockstar trashing a hotel room—I thought I was doing a noble thing. "I will give her a loving home," I told the shelter volunteer. "I will provide structure, discipline, and warmth."

After exactly four minutes of this psychic assault, I feel a phantom pressure on my leg. I get up to get a glass of water. When I return—poof. Frisky is stretched out like a furry starfish, belly up, paws spread, taking up 90% of the cushion. She looks up at me as if to say, "Oh, were you sitting here? That's weird. I don't remember your name being on the deed." And when I finally give up on the

Yet, every morning, I find a single, perfect, white-and-orange strand of fur floating in my coffee mug. Before I pour the coffee.

She just closes her eyes, trusting that the world—and her human—will continue to bend to her will. She doesn’t meow politely

She has been knocking pens off counters ever since. And pillows off couches. And plants off shelves. And, last week, my entire carefully folded pile of laundry onto the dusty floor.

In a world where I have to be on time, productive, polite, and predictable, Frisky answers to no one. She naps in the sunbeam even when the laundry needs folding. She demands pets, then bites me exactly 2.5 seconds later because she is done . She lives entirely on her own terms.