Here's something sweet (and true) for all of you. · 5:25am Sep 21st, 2012

Hey, that rhymed!

Anyways, here is the story of how two very wonderful kittens came into my life this last week.

And it's long as hell.

A week ago, Devin (my wife) and I adopted this adorable little ball of love and claws, who we have named "Tabby". This kitten is one of the most affectionate felines I've ever encountered. While in the adoption screening room (where you play with the animal ahead of time), she was skittish at first but soon warmed up to the lot of us, even the obnoxious toddler. Needless to say, the fact that she was friendly towards our son was an immediate bonus, and we adopted her straight away. Over the next few days, she settled into her role as queen of the castle and truly made herself at home.

Monday, as I was coming home from work a good deal later than usual, I just happened to look out my window as I was crossing an overpass and spotted a cat on the side of the road. We made eye contact, and I couldn't help but pull over and run back to the cat. I say “run back” because there was no place to pull over for a good quarter mile, and I didn’t want anything to happen to the cat. As I arrived, huffing and puffing, I noticed that this wasn’t a cat. It was a kitten, and a tiny one at that. I reached out to pick it up, cars and trucks roaring by all the while, and the kitten was absolutely terrified. It hissed at me a few times and tried to run away, thankfully by trying to climb up the concrete wall instead of running through traffic. I managed to grab the flighty feline mid-jump, bracing for a barrage of teeth and claws but finding none. I held the cat to my chest and slowly stroked it as I tried to calm and reassure the terrified creature, to little avail.

I made it all the way to the car without incident, and I deposited the cat on the passenger seat for the last leg of the ride home. When I arrived, the cat had managed to stow itself under the seat and safely out of my reach. After about thirty minutes and a variety of stooge-like antics, we finally extricated the cat and sequestered it in the upstairs bathroom with food, water, a litter box, and a little house. Devin called a local vet and set up an appointment first thing the next morning. Throughout the rest of my night (I was up quite late configuring all three of our computers at the time, in the midst of other work) I would pop into the bathroom to check on our unnamed black and white visitor. Without fail, every time I would approach the cat, it would hiss menacingly and find a corner to hide in. Each time, I would gently coax the cat out of the corner (and by that, I mean I would gently grab said cat and remove it from the corner). Despite grabbing the cat and dragging it from its hiding spot time after time, being hissed at the entire time, not once did this kitten take a swipe at me or try to bite me. Even though this cat was terrified out of its mind, it was still a sweet little thing.

The next day, the kitten had calmed significantly, only hissing a little bit as I put it in a box to take it to the vet. $125 in vet bills later, we learned that this kitten was a she (same as the other cat, thankfully) and was only six weeks old. Not even old enough to be away from her mother, and yet there she was… abandoned on the side of the road like so much trash. There was never any doubt in my mind, but this news cemented my will: we would keep this cat. Corny as it may seem, I want very much to do right by this cat, in what I guess is some sort of apology for the way she had been treated so early in life.

Among the determination of her age and gender, this is what else we found out about the kitten I’d rescued: she had an upper-respiratory infection, worms, diarrhea (from the change in diet or malnutrition prior, the vet couldn’t tell), and a cold. We got a good deal of medicine and prescriptions to treat these ailments, along with orders to quarantine her for 48-72 hours. Everything settled, we took her home. Since I would be at work all day for most of the week, I tasked Devin out to check in on our new kitten every so often to make sure she didn’t feel abandoned or alone. Devin agreed readily, and it was so.

The issue of what to call this rescued kitten arose, and my solution was as cliché as it was appropriate: we would call her “Lucky”.

Through the remainder of the quarantine, Devin and I spent a pretty good amount of time with Lucky, and it soon became abundantly clear that this cat was every bit as much a sweetheart as she seemed. Shy as the dickens at first, once she warmed up to us, she was playful and happy. The medicine did its job, and soon Lucky was feeling right as rain, frolicking the way she should. I was on the phone with Devin as we discussed our newest feline acquisition when we inadvertently stumbled upon the perfect nickname for Lucky. Through the miracle of terrible reception and with the aid of the wind blowing past the mouthpiece, Devin somehow misheard “Lucky” as “Juauqim” (wa-keem). This is what we now jokingly refer to Lucky as.

This morning, we released Lucky into he rest of the house and followed her with ridiculous levels of enjoyment as she explored her new surroundings. I swear, this kitten is so cute, so sweet, that I think I might be developing diabeetus (I know that’s not how it’s spelled… and I care not) from it. Tabby was at first a bit recalcitrant towards her new housemate, but by the time I got home today, the two had bonded and become pals, playing tag and harassing Danny (our son) together. Another thing awaiting me as I came home from work was a cardboard box big enough to fit three bodies in, one that weighed so much I thought that someone had already had the same idea. It actually contained a cat-tree of enormous stature, and I spent the next half hour assembling it. My reward for my troubles? The cats have largely ignored it. I presume once they figure out that they can climb up on that thing to escape Danny, they will take quite a shine to it. Well, that about wraps it up for now.

*Note: Personally, I like animals a lot more than people; it is a known fact that the majority of people on earth just generally suck at life. People are mean, vicious, and cruel, often with little to no provocation. Never in my life have I met an animal (for the sake of preempting ridiculous rhetoric,let's limit this to cats and dogs, ones that I have met) who was any of these things on its own. I have never been lied to by an animal (except for that damnable parrot... ), I have never been mistreated by an animal, and I have never seen an animal act malicious or spiteful for no reason. Animals by nature are good creatures, and they want the same thing that the rest of us do... to love, and to be loved. It brought a few tears to my eyes the first night I held Lucky, as I contemplated what kind of monstrous being would abandon one so helpless. Who knows how long she had been crouched on the side of the freeway, buffeted by gusts of wind as cars roared by a 75 miles an hour? How long she had been sitting in the sun, too terrified to move, baking in the relentless sun? I cannot help but wonder these things and ask myself... what sort of monster could drive past? As I held her and tried to comfort this tiny creature, she was shaking from head to tail, and shaking violently at that. So new to this world, and yet so full of fear, knowing nothing but loneliness and terror... no creature should ever go through that. The second night, as I held her and stroked her, she purred. That one, simple sound broke down whatever walls I had the pretense of trying to hold up, and I wept a bit. I wept not only for her past, or what little I knew of it, anyways... but also for her future, and the promise it held. In my heart, nay, in my soul, the very core of who I am and what I believe, I get a warm and fuzzy feeling whenever I think of this kitten... how I saved her life. I have the opportunity to give Lucky the life she deserves instead of the one she was dealt. Yeah, I have that warm and fuzzy feeling in my chest right now... and it is shaped like a kitten.

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