For as long as I have lived, our house has never been vacant of cats. When I was born, my mother brought me home where she keeps Fluffy, a black/white striped stray. When we were sent to the province where my Grandpa and cousins were, there were at least 3 cats which would increase or decrease in number depending on their mating season. When I returned to Manila to finish elementary, we had as much as 9 cats.
Easily outnumbering the humans the "Lucky Nine" - the name we collectively call them actively competed for our attention. That would've been sweet but they like showing off proof of their hunting skills to us by bringing home prey. The three adult cats liked hunting in the evening so we get mouse limbs, heads and other body parts as well as dead roaches at the kitchen as gifts by dinner. The hyperactive younger strays preferred hunting during daylight so we get their offerings - usually small birds during lunch. So there, we had a rotating shift of hunters that bring in trash.
We owned a lot of pet fish too courtesy of my father. At one point, we owned 8 aquariums housing different fish. On more than one occassion, a gold fish or a sword tail would appear on the kitchen floor as one of the cat's offerings. The aquariums had glass top covers but we noticed the cats learned to work as a team to uncover, topple or break objects that obstructed their reach. They can open oven toasters, rice containers and other contraptions we kept leftover food in. Kim, the adult orange alpha male cat, liked pushing plates off the table spreading food and broken china on the floor and the other cats would join in the feast. We ended up replacing all our dinnerwares by aluminum ones. We had aluminum plates and glasses. They made huge noises when you cleaned them. If there's a visitor while someone was doing the dishes we just tell them "oh that's just mother cleaning the plates". And we get odd looks because the house sounded like a freaking steel mill.
I once owned a stray kitten and I had him sleep in a small basket beside my bed. He was the sweetest thing until my sister traumatized him by stepping on his tail. From then on, his little brain snapped and stopped recognizing anybody including me. He'd paw and pounce at anything and anybody at close proximity - whether it's our feet, hands petting him, his food tray and even his tail. My mother decided to put him in a small unused hamster cage so he won't hurt himself. You can imagine us bewildered when we wake up and see him alone on the cage with scratches on his eye. On one of the days we let him out, my sister decided to finish what she started when she "accidentally" stepped on him while she was dancing to Mariah Carey music. He was the first cat to die in my hand.
Over the years, the cats came and went. When their numbers began to swell to well over our means (mostly when the females produce kittens every 3 months or so), we gave away the ones to neighbors or nearby relatives. At least that's what my father tells my little sister then when he bags the kittens on rice sacks and head to the market. I learned in time that thankfully, he doesn't kill them off but rather let them loose at the park near the market. We'd see grown strays at the public playground who looked just like the ones we own or owned.
