Not So Funny Meow, Is It?

March 20, 2014

Exactly one month to the day after my husband moved out I went to the SPCA and adopted two kittens for my sons as a surprise Christmas present. I was fully aware that this was probably a typical “newly separated” thing to do for them but I didn’t care. They needed something that would make them happy and would be theirs.

We picked up the only 2 kittens they had, a brother and sister.

Right away I knew the girl would be for my youngest son, who’s three and the boy would be for my 7 year old. I just knew it was the best fit and I’ve been proven right ever since we got them. My oldest named his Stripes within seconds. My youngest decided on Saka in the beginning but went through new names daily for a while (Shotgun, Juicy Kitty, Man Kitty, Gun Water…if there is such a thing as Multiple Cat Personality Disorder this kitty has it). Luckily he’s stopped renaming and stuck with Saka, she’s very grateful.

The reason she is a perfect fit for the 3 year old is because she is very docile and rarely if ever swats at anyone. She is a little skittish but that’s probably because she is owned by a boy that likes to hold her upside down and exclaim things like “She bounces!!”

I don’t blame her for running away from him, sometimes I run from him too. She is still a very playful cat, she’s the best at the game “Oh my God, where did that red dot come from? It’s gone. THERE IT IS AGAIN!!”.

Her brother is very frisky and prone to hunt anything that moves, or doesn’t move (as my big toe can attest, and in my toes defense it wasn’t talking shit or even moving at the time) which is why he’s a better fit for my 7 year old who is scrawny but big enough to fight off a middle of the night cat vs. foot attack. He pounces on my little ones head when he’s walking up the stairs, tries to kill his blankie when he drags it behind him, or his face when he twitches, you name it. Being the good mother I am I’ve turned this into a training opportunity, he now is learning how not to be cornered by a cat that wants to play with/maim him. And I figure this will serve him well later in life as he will be a master at dodging all sorts of uncomfortable situations. Like the mother-in-law who corners him on Thanksgiving to find out when she’s getting grandbabies, or the awkward co-worker who stops him in the office bathroom to show him his latest rash. Assuming that yelling “NO!” while pushing them away with your foot and barking like a dog is the way to get out of all of these situations. You are welcome, son.

Quite often I hear from my youngest “Oh man, stripes is kissing my cat’s butt again!”. What he means by this is that Stripes likes to suckle and knead on his sister's belly. A lot. I don’t know the rules on kitty incest and frankly I don’t know my vet well enough to discuss this without getting the Kitty Protective Services called on me. And Google was useless when it comes to info on “how to tell if your cat’s expression means help me or leave us alone” (maybe I should try Bing). I know it’s not really sexual but it’s all so intimate and private that for now I’m going to be that awful mom that knows what is happening in her own house but is looking the other way. A Lifetime movie is already being written about it.

I am (obviously) not much of a pet person. I do like cats. They clean themselves and don’t need to go outside to shit. They are the perfect lazy person's pet. As my poor old beagle can attest, I’m not much for his kind. He’s the sweetest dumbest thing you’ll ever meet, but he’s a lot of work. And he farts without even feeling ashamed about it.

When I was 14 I begged my parents for a dog and they finally took me to the pound and I picked out a mutt that was a few years old. Come to find out he had lived on the streets before, we still adopted him (we are very stupid). He literally chased cars. That’s not just a thing that someone created for a funny comic strip. He chased moving cars. He also tried to kill any other dog he saw, his favorite toy was a rock and he peed on my bed almost daily. Needless to say he was back at the pound within a few months. Then, 13 years ago, when my ex and I had just moved in together he woke up one day and said “I want a beagle” and because I never said no to him, we went and got one that day. I’m not even sure we checked with the landlord first. So when it comes to dogs I don’t have a great history.

My history with cats isn’t that much better but I feel like that’s not as much my fault. My first kitten we found in the newspaper (the cat wasn’t IN the newspaper, that would be weird, it was an ad for free kittens, silly). Apparently my parents looked in the Psychotics Weekly for this ad because my mom and I arrived at an apartment building that smelled of pee and broken promises. The man that was giving away the kitten answered his door and let us in, even as a very young kid I knew we should probably just run. His small apartment was FULL of cats. Like 3 episodes of Animal Hoarders in one. A lot of them didn’t have hair, and they should have. We STILL accepted this kitten and went home. I named her Kitty (because I had a great imagination) and spent the next few days trying to convince her to come out from under our coat rack only to have her hiss and swipe at me repeatedly. One night my mom woke up in the middle of the night to see Kitty sitting on her chest staring at her (obviously she was trying to suck her soul out of her, there’s no other reason) so my mom, being the strong Christian woman she is, threw the cat off of her while screaming “I rebuke you Satan!” (or something equally as anti-Satan as that) only to have the cat yell back at her in some “hail Satan” hiss fest. The next day that cat was gone. I didn’t miss it.

My next cat I named Buster (hey, it’s better than Kitty). Very shortly after I got him he got very sick. We took him to the vet and if my adolescent memory serves, they shot him with fluids (which he apparently didn’t have enough of) to the point that the fluids they were injecting came shooting back out of the hole the syringe made. I could very well be making this up but the memory is one that I’ve had for so long that it might as well be real. He died a few days later. We gave up the kitty search for a while after that. Eventually my sister and I both got kittens. They either died or we moved and had to give them away (we moved a lot and a lot of cats died so how am I supposed to remember?). Then at age 14 or so I got a cat that I had for 17 years and who died in my arms (shortly after shit-peeing all over me). He was my best pet to date.

Stripes & Saka are now 5 months old and growing much quicker than I thought they would. They have destroyed 2 potted plants, a lamp, a large frame, a few lightbulbs and a laptop cord. They sleep only in the basket of clean clothes (literally never in the dirty laundry pile) and meow for absolutely no reason. But I love them. I love how often my boys have told me how happy they are that they have cats. I love the responsibility they feel for them. Even when the boys fight over who gets to hold which one, at least they are fighting over who gets to be sweet to a living animal. So, I am learning to go with the flow and love the little devils. And the cats too.