Several months ago, I found two kittens in an abandoned home at the manufactured housing community where I work. The kittens were about three or four weeks old at the time and living in squalid conditions. The home was devoid of food. The thoughtless renters had left a filthy bowl of yellowish water on the kitchen floor. Imagine a home where the floor is covered in feces, fleas jumping merrily from one living creature to the next, and you might have a revolting visual picture of what the place looked like. If there is a living hell for cats on earth, I had descended into its most abysmal depths.
Their mother, who was nothing but skin and bones, immediately came to me as soon as I opened the door. She was so weak she could only circle my path, meowing incessantly as if to say “look what they’ve done to me.” Her kittens, one a male yellow tabby and the other a smaller, female multi-colored hobbit, spied on me shyly from behind the kitchen counter. As I brushed the multitude of annoying fleas from my khaki pants, I tried very hard to imagine how I was going to be able to drop these poor creatures off at the local Humane Society, which isn't a no-kill shelter.
The female kitten was easy to corral but her brother was more skittish. It took me fifteen minutes to gather both kittens and place them in a box in the car. As I was locking up to go back in for the mother, a neighbor walked across the street and informed me that there was at least one more kitten in the house. After searching from room to room, I finally had to give up my quest for the elusive third sibling. I felt miserable as I called our maintenance staff to check the home for the third kitten, and instructed them to take the mother cat to the Humane Society. I still feel bad about that decision, but we already have fish, a rabbit (which is about the size of a turkey) and a dog with bad kidneys. I also knew that my wife, Julie, was going to be less then happy with the prospect of two more creatures sharing our home, so unfortunately adopting the mother was not an option.
When I finally got home later that day, Julie was mad for about two minutes as we played with the kittens on the floor, but she quickly fell in love with both of them as the kids announced that they were now part of the family for all eternity. The kids named the male tabby, Merlin, and his smaller, calico sister, Sophia. We spent our evening giving both kittens a mild flea bath and patiently picking off the dead little bastards with a pair of tweezers. The next couple of weeks were pure bliss as we watched the tiny hairballs play and explore their new surroundings. We were in love.
That was three months ago. Now our cats are driving me crazy. They’re still cute in a “teen” sort of way as they frolic around the house like the Manson Family on a combination of speed and LSD. We now have to keep our bedroom doors shut at night to avoid having Merlin and Sophia crawl or sprawl on our sleeping faces (believe me there’s nothing worse than being roused from a deep slumber by a swishing tail that fifteen minutes earlier was probably flipping around in the litter box). They jump on our kitchen counters and table without regard and defecate in their litter box like twenty hung over frat boys clogging up the toilets on an idle Sunday afternoon.
Despite my threats to anonymously drop them off at the Humane Society, we are stuck with them. My kids would probably never forgive me if I got rid of them now. I guess by rescuing them when they were “cute and cuddly” - we have made a commitment. The frustrating thing is waiting for the next ten years until they become mellow, constipated octogenarians, who don’t want a damn thing to do with any of us.
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