I named her "Trouble" because she has a giant patch of red fur on her head. She's a redhead just like me - and I was right to think that she would be ornery, mean, and short-tempered.

* When I eat, she jumps onto the table (usually by crawling up my back with all claws fully extended) and dives headfirst into my food. If someone pulls a pan of food out of the oven and puts it on top to cool, Trouble's usually right in the middle of it the moment our backs are turned.

* Around daybreak, she comes inside with various dead things and deposits them at the foot of my mother's bed. So far, she's offered "gifts" of several dead mice, one very large rat, a small frog and too many grasshoppers to count.

* Trouble is forced to share the cat feeder with several other cats. She has somehow trained my mother to leave the top open after refilling it so that Trouble can sit on top of the microwave and lean down to eat out of the top while the rest of the cats crowd around the bottom.