Ode to a Dirtbag
This is a special edition of our newsletter, because on October 10 Dirtbag Henry left us and crossed the rainbow bridge. We thought the chemo med was helping and hoped he’d turn a corner at some point, but he went downhill dramatically the week prior.
He’d mostly stopped eating, and when he did he couldn’t keep anything down. And he was clearly not comfortable at all any more, and even though he was a gigantic asshole, we loved him dearly and would not let him suffer.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks, and we haven’t gotten a whole lot of writing done anyway, as we adjust to life without him. So instead we’re going to tell you his story, and share a mess of our favorite pictures of him. And so we give you:
An Ode to Dirtbag Henry, Our Barely Good Boy
as written by Susan
A little over ten years ago, I saw an adorable kitten on the internet and I told Tilly I had to meet him.
So I met him, and he did not give a shit about me. Actually it seemed like he didn’t give a shit about anyone. And he was so thin and small.
I thought, well, he seems like he will be a problem, and so … he needs me.
When we got him, he was actually starving … because he didn’t like the food the rescue was feeding him, and I knew then he was definitely going to be a problem. And he was.
Henry had no concept of self preservation. In order to avoid doing something he didn’t want to do, he would have walked straight off a cliff.
He was the most stubborn cat we have ever had. He was emotional. He was a whiner. He was anxious. He was a tough guy around the apartment and the first one to hide if a stranger came around. He hated … a lot of things.
He once had to go to the vet because he had stopped drinking – because he was afraid of the water fountain I bought for him. He would only drink out of this little plastic bowl that we bought when he was a kitten until I could find a bowl that looked similar. It took forever for me to find a plain one because I was afraid if it had a paw print or something in the bottom it would scare him.
He was pretty and he knew he could manipulate us by being adorable. He did that a lot in his younger years. He was a white and gray spotted tabby, and on one side there was a big tabby blotch that sort of looked like a little buffalo.
He destroyed many things in his younger days — some on accident, some on purpose. I called him “my barely good boy.”
(note: this photo is not the aforementioned iced tea. this one was lemonade)
He was always a bit uneasy about the shower, and would sniff it and look inside after I had gotten out. But there was usually a small puddle of water on the shower ledge and he loved to drink that.
He loved to sniff baby carrots. When you tried to give him one, he looked at you like you’d lost your mind. He would never eat that! But he sure wanted to huff the carrot fumes.
He loved playing in paper. He often slept splayed out on his back looking ridiculous.
He loved his blue Costco box, which would be on the dining room table after our Costco runs. I think he just really liked the smell of Costco. Henry thought all boxes were great, but his Costco box was the best box in the whole world.
It probably didn’t hurt that it was only in the apartment after we’d brought up groceries from Costco, so usually only for one or two days a week. The rarity made it extra special.
He also liked our stinky shoes and would rub all over them, and would rub his face on the little rug in the entryway once we removed our shoes from it. (This may or may not have been related to his chronic eye infection issues.)
He practically had his own medicine cabinet for the eye drops and the eye ointment and the ointment for his chin infections and cat acne. I think he would get those because he never cleaned his face very well after eating his canned food. He never cleaned his eyes either. But he would let me do it.
He really hated having to get medicine of any kind so we made up new names for him when we had to grab him and dose him, to throw him off. Like “Meatball,” but then he learned that one. So we added “Dustbox Samuel” and “Dishpan Frank.”
After our other cat Stella died, who’d sort of mothered him since he was a kitten, Henry got very anxious, so we got Izzy for him. Izzy loves to cuddle on the couch and it would make Henry mad. Which was funny, because he hardly ever wanted to cuddle us. I think he just thought no one should be allowed to cuddle us if he wasn’t going to do it.
As a baby Stella let him eat first and she took care of him, but he never reciprocated. There might be one photo of him lying next to her but pretty soon he decided no one should lay next to him ever. Or sit by him. If I sat down on the couch within six inches of him he would usually leave, unless it was actually cold. If it was cold, then it was cuddle time.
He would never groom Stella or Izzy, even though they would groom him. Occasionally he would give them a single, fairly disinterested lick on the head.
Izzy tried multiple times to get him to lie next to her and every time, he was like HELL NO.
When we would come back from Comic Con, Henry wouldn’t be all lovey nor would he be mad. He just seemed surprised that we came back at all.
We liked to buy roses from Costco when finances allowed. But Henry was obsessed with eating them (roses are nontoxic to cats but they made him barf). As a result, we always took every leaf off of every rose, including the ring of little green leaves at the base of every bud. He still managed to occasionally eat a petal, even though we would threaten him with a squirt bottle of water. And then he would barf. Ugh. And then he’d try to eat them again.
If a piece of poop got stuck to his butt, he would flee from the litter box as if he was on fire, because something was chasing him and he didn't know what it was. He never did figure it out.
He would wake me up in the middle of the night by scratching the wardrobe until I sat up. Then he would dash out of the bedroom. Then, if I didn’t close at least one door to keep him out, he would wait until I fell back asleep and then do it again. Sometimes I would shut him out of the bedroom completely and in the morning he would give me a look as if to say, “why were YOU so rude to ME?”
But often he was my nighttime buddy. When I would get up in the middle of the night, he would often be there, just to give me a slink and accept a few pets. Or I’d peek out into the living room and see him curled up on the couch, lifting his head to see me. He was more of a nighttime snacker than Izzy.
He would sit on my dresser when he wanted to play with the cat dancer toy (a toy made of wire and rolled up cardboard, and it was his favorite). He would stare at me until I got the hint. Then I would attempt to play with him, which sometimes meant he would come play, and sometimes it meant he would completely ignore the toy, and sometimes it meant he would watch me wave the toy around like it was Cat TV.
When he did choose to participate, he preferred to chase the toy in little circles. I always wondered if he would get dizzy but he never seemed to, and then he would expect me to throw it. He would then chase it down, and pick it up. Sometimes he would hold it high and proudly and walk around while I said, “You did it! Good job!” Then he would settle down and try to eat the little pieces of rolled up cardboard, and I would take it away. Then he would go eat, even after the times he didn’t play with it. It was like, “yes, that’s what I wanted you to do, now you have done it, so I can go eat.” This was an ironclad routine. I tried it a lot more when he was eating too little, in the hopes he would just eat a little bit more out of the habit of it all.
![Social media post from tilly on Aug 25, 2019 that reads: INT. BEDROOM – 5 am Me: [sleeping emoji] Dirtbag Henry: *approaches* Me: [side eye emoji] DH: *stops* Me: [sleeping emoji] DH: *walks up to my face, rubs his wet nose over my entire closed right eyelid* Me: [blank face emoji] DH: *leaves*](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e6/cf/e6cf08ea-e92e-4aee-a0a2-54a32bdafe72/content/images/2026/10/V.jpg)
He sought out affection from all of us in completely different ways. For me, he would sometimes sit on my dresser as an invitation for me to pet him. Then I could scratch his chin and between his ears, and kiss him on the head, and he would purr.
If I wasn’t doing something he wanted me to do, he would either bite my ankles and/or knees, or he would start knocking everything he could off of every available surface. He would also chew on plastic when he was mad.
Sometimes he would just stare at me as if to say, “something is wrong, and you will figure it out.” He always had this unshakable faith that I would figure it out! And usually, I did. And if I didn’t, well. I’d get some ankle bites.
(this was his "Something Is Wrong, Susan, Figure It Out" pose)
Very occasionally though Henry would wake me up in the middle of the night by standing on me. And then he would make biscuits against my neck while I petted him. Moving his paws somewhere more comfortable did no good. It was neck kneading or nothing. So I put up with it.
He often slept on Tilly’s dresser in the afternoons, until Izzy kicked him off. I had made a little Halloween quilt for him that was on top of a crocheted blanket. But he was very sensitive to laundry detergent. I washed his blankets once with regular Tide and he was so angry. He refused to lie on them for a week. Through trial and error, I learned that we had to use unscented baby soap just for his blankets, AND they could not be machine dried. I’m assuming he hated the scents from the shared machines in our building. So his blankets were always air dried. This was acceptable.
He also liked to lay on the floor on top of the power cord that ran from the fan to the wall. We called it his favorite cord.
Rarely he would come on the couch when me and Tilly were on it, and he would ask for pets from one of us, then go to the other person for pets, then come back to the first person, and repeat until he was done.
He could occasionally be sweet in other ways, at times. He liked to sleep between Tilly’s feet while she sat at her desk.
And when Tilly was in gender-affirming speech therapy, and had to record herself practicing and listen to it back, which was a really awful and dysphoric experience for her, Henry came and cuddled her the entire time. Every day. Like he knew how hard it was for her.
He was also her stretching buddy, and when she stretched before or after roller derby practice, he would come stretch with her. It was so cute.
We had such a special relationship. I think all of us did. He was unique with each of us in different ways.
He had a loud purr.
Henry worked very hard to never do anything he didn’t want to do. He was tired of us giving him pills every day, although I bought tiny gel caps for him so he wouldn’t have to taste the pills. He stopped wanting to eat but the appetite stimulant made him hungry, which was making him angry.
I bought him different food flavors but then those started to upset his stomach too. His last few days he barely ate and he was still vomiting at times despite the meds that were supposed to help in that regard. We could see he was uncomfortable and we knew it would only get worse. He’s never been a cat that did well with discomfort.
I think he had decided he was done with the whole eating and living thing, and we decided to respect that. He was pretty good at telling us what he wanted, all along.
He had the biggest personality ever, and I already feel the lack of it. He was so unapologetically himself. I will miss him with my whole heart forever.
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Susan Bridges
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