Scott Miller wasn’t the only one to go before id began working on Doom. Mitzi would suffer a similar fate. Carmack’s cat had been a thorn in the side of the id employees, beginning with the days of her overflowing litter box back at the lake house. Since then she had grown more irascible, lashing out at passersby and relieving herself freely around his apartment. The final straw came when she peed all over a brand-new leather couch that Carmack had bought with the Wolfenstein cash. Carmack broke the news to the guys.

“Mitzi was having a net negative impact on my life,” he said. “I took her to the animal shelter. Mmm.”

“What?” Romero asked. The cat had become such a sidekick of Carmack’s that the guys had even listed her on the company directory as his significant other–and now she was just gone? “You know what this means?” Romero said. “They’re going to put her to sleep! No one’s going to want to claim her. She’s going down! Down to Chinatown!”

Carmack shrugged it off and returned to work. The same rule applied to a cat, a computer program, or, for that matter, a person. When something becomes a problem, let it go or, if necessary, have it surgically removed.