Christopher Smith is CHICO’s/my pen name. It turns out that despite the recent discovery that cats can be powerful additions to the workforce, no banks are willing to give a cat a direct deposit saving account for their book royalties or a credit card with mileage rewards, so I needed a boring government name. Christopher Smith, wink, me CHICO, is a civil rights lawyer, wink (I fancy myself as someone who takes on the so-called man, aka the government when it overreaches). I am a reluctant writer who discovered as a house cat I have a huge advantage in assessing how to deal with human problems. When everyone in a household is living the ups and downs of life from their own perspectives, cats are forced to sit, watch and listen to all sides of the human conflict going on in our homes. My motto used to be don’t pester me.  Listening to how hard things can get for my human family forced me to fight for their happiness. And now unexplainably, unless you have a hundred hours to kill, I am fighting for the happiness of all animal lovers.