Introducing: Merlin

This is Merlin. Given that the 3 year anniversary of him coming to live with me has just passed, I figured I should make a little post about him.

I moved into my very first all-by-myself, mine-and-just-mine apartment in August of 2005. I told myself that I should give myself a little time to get settled in before getting a cat, and decided that a month was long enough. As soon as September hit, I was out looking for a feline companion.
One of my first stops was the Cowichan SPCA. I'd been there many times before to drop of expired food from the clinic I was working at, so they knew me. I wandered around the cat room for a while, but I just didn't see any cats who felt like they were mine. I had an image in my head of the cat I wanted, and none of them were it.
I went up to the front desk and asked the lady if there might be other cats looking for homes who weren't in the room. She thought for a minute, and then asked what sort of cat I was looking for. "Oh," I said, "Well, I like male cats, neutered obviously. And an older cat would be good because I'm out a lot and wouldn't have time for a kitten. I love black cats, especially short haired. Oh, and I work at a clinic, so if there's a cat with some health problems that nobody else wants, I'd take him."
She stared at me for a minute, and then told me to come out to the back porch with her. In the middle of the back porch, sprawled in a patch of sunlight, was my cat. I knew it from the moment he purred and rolled onto his back for a belly rub. He was a neutered male, all black except for 3 white hairs under one eye. He was around 13, though they didn't know for sure how old he really was, partly because he was missing all but one of his teeth. He had horrible dandruff, oily fur, and a tendency to lick his stomach bare. His name was Spice and he'd been at the shelter for two whole years.
The first night I had him home, he crawled up onto my chest and fell asleep purring while I lay on the couch. He's rarely been far from my lap since then, and is sprawled across my feet as I write this. He is everything I'd ever wanted in a cat, and more.
So...my first co-pilot and co-conspirator, Merlin Spice Kletus Trudeau Dryden.