Cat-astrophic

I am not really an animal lover. I do like animals, but I would rather that they live at other people’s homes and not mine. Pets are expensive, and you spend a ton of money on them only to have them be eaten by a coyote a week later. I wasn’t always this way. I had a cat when I was in school that I loved. His name was Garfield and he was a beautiful orange and white Tabby cat. Justin and I tried to have an indoor cat when we were first married. It was ok at first, but after awhile I started sneezing and she was so messy that we decided to give her away. Justin never forgave me for that. He gets really attached to animals. He may not show it on the outside but he is a softy when it comes to cats and dogs.

When Quinton was one we decided to try again with two kittens. Beauty and Socks were brother and sister and they were really cute kittens. We kept them in the basement and let them upstairs when we were home. By spring I was a mess. I decided that they would be outside cats and we could keep them in the garage at night. Beauty went and got her self pregnant. She had a beautiful set of kittens. They were so cute and most of them were adopted very quickly. I was keeping them in the basement and letting them out for small amounts of time to play on the deck. I kept a close eye on them. We had only three left when one of the kitten drowned in the pond out front. Justin and I were both devastated. I couldn’t believe how quickly it happened and it really affected us. A month later our momma was pregnant again. We had kept one of her kittens and the three cats were getting along great. Otis was a little orange kitty. He reminded me of my cat Garfield so I had to keep him. Beauty had three more fuzzy bundles and we began the search for new homes for the new arrivals.

Right before the new kittens were ready to give away we had a really bad month that changed my feelings about Cats and Dogs forever.

The first week we lost Otis to a pack of coyotes. I was so upset. I had left door to the garage open for socks who was MIA and Otis who was out prowling bit the big one.

The second week Beauty got hit by a car and we had to put her to sleep. Justin went to pay the vet not realizing it had already been done and he sat in the lobby and cried. (that still chokes me up to this day) The death of Beauty left me to feed and bathe the three kittens she left behind.

Week three was Justin’s breaking point. On my way to school I noticed Socks laying dead on the side of the road. He had been missing for a few days so I figured that this is where he had been. I called Jus and let him now that I had found our Socks and he was gone. Justin was almost all the way to work, but he called his boss, turned around and came home to make sure. He came back and checked him out and found that it was Socks. Heart broken he pulled him off the road and buried him in the ditch. I found homes for the kittens and our 6 cat family was now a zero cat family. For the next two weeks we cleaned our house of any sign of a cat. I threw out all the cat things and cleaned up all the cat mess.

You may be asking yourself why am I telling you this sad sad story of my dead cats. The reason may shock you. You will never guess what happened next. I got a frantic phone call from Justin about 3 weeks after we buried Socks. I thought something terrible had happened.

“Socks is Alive!!!” He said over the phone
“I buried someone else's cat. I saw something in the bushes and I thought I was seeing things when out popped socks. You aren’t going to believe this. Something rubbed the white patch off his nose. He has no hair on his nose. He brought a friend with him pick up some cat food.”

I thought he was crazy surely this wasn’t our cat. You can’t rub a white patch off a cat’s nose, but sure enough there was Socks with a naked nose sitting on my porch. He had brought Jasmine with him (Quinton named her) She was a wild kitty and really only liked us for the food. Sock’s nose fur grew in black. I was really suspicious about this cat, but Justin swore up and down that it was Socks.

Now you might think that this is the end , and I did too, but about a week later I got another frantic call from Justin.

“Amelia there are two Socks on our porch!”
“Who left a pair of socks on our porch?” I asked confused
“NO I MEAN THERE ARE TWO CATS THAT LOOK LIKE SOCKS ON OUR PORCH!”
We now had the black nosed Pod Cat impostor Socks that had duped my broken hearted husband, the magically resurrected Socks with the correct markings, and the dead Socks buried in the ditch that belonged to God knows who. I looked from Socks to the pod cat to Justin slightly dazed. “You know... They really don’t look all that much a like,” Justin Mused.

I don’t remember how I responded to Justin , but I do believe there were quite a few “I told you so’s” and a few “I can’t believe that you convinced me that that pod cat was Socks.”

Jasmine is the only kitty that has stuck with us. Pod Cat and Socks ran off together a few weeks later and never came back. Justin and I really had no desire to keep Jasmine, but she really hasn’t given us a choice. We finally caught her, fixed her, and now she is a friendly healthy, slightly gimpy kitty. We have had her for over 4 years. She will be our last.