Viggo is a pussy.

No, really. He’s a gray and white tuxedo cat (his tux is a fashionable dove gray rather than black) who lives in Seattle, likes to hang out in the carport or roam the neighborhood when he’s not napping on my bed, and yowls when he wants something done ASAP.

This is the story of how he got his name.

I was living in a shared house at the time with three housemates and one elderly cat, Krissy. One housemate had recently moved out with her two large cats, Athena and Achilles (she was into mythology, obviously). Athena and Achilles had been the upstairs cats, and Krissy was the downstairs cat. Anytime one of them cautiously crept down the stairs for a look see, Krissy would chase them right back up in a fury. Even though she was elderly and half their size, she was the queen of the house.

Krissy’s owner was my friend Val, who was one of the housemates at the time. Val had named her Krissy because of her crossed eyes. She was a creamy flame-point Siamese/Persian mix.

When I moved out to Seattle from Colorado, I wasn’t able to bring my white cat Gracie with me. (I left her with my dad, and now he’s very fond of her. My dad is always inheriting cats from his daughters.)

When Achilles and Athena moved out, that left a potential vacancy, since the house had a three-cat maximum and now there was only Krissy. So Val took it upon herself to convince me that I needed a kitten. And in fact she just happened to know of someone who had a litter of kittens that were old enough to be given away.

I told her I didn’t want the financial responsibility at that time, so we compromised. We would be co-owners. We’d share the expenses for cat food, litter, and vet bills.

So we gleefully headed over to the home where the kittens were. There were four of them – three gray and white ones and a tortoiseshell.

The tortie was awfully cute, but it seemed kinda sluggish. One of the gray and white kittens was playing “king of the hill” on the scratching post, which we both found adorable. So we took him home with us. He was six weeks old.

We got him home and carefully presented him to Krissy to see what she’d do. We were hoping they’d be friends, but we were also prepared for the possibility that she’d try to rip his head off instead.

What happened, though, is the one thing we were not prepared for, and it totally took us by surprise.

Instead of being frightened and cowering or trying to run, the kitten stood his ground and didn’t back up an inch, even though Krissy was hissing and advancing toward him. He arched his back, hissed loudly, and raised a tiny paw to strike!

Needless to say, Krissy didn’t know what to make of this miniature hellion. She ran off.

That’s how he became the boss of the house.

See part 2 to learn how he got his name.