So I gave him $10, but told him I would return his bunny on Tuesday after Easter because we couldn't keep one. My kids LOVED it, and I patted myself on the back for being a genius parent. And then that moment was gone.
Sometimes when one has experienced a brief moment of brilliance, like the aforementioned story, this can build a false confidence in one's eye for good ideas. Good ideas do not necessarily beget more good ideas. This leads me to our current situation, which is of the feline variety.
It all started very simply. We have been considering getting a cat. My friend Donia posted on Facebook that they have discovered that their sweet kitty turned out to be a loose woman and just like that, we have a kitten on the way. I have a few months to get used to the idea and prepare, so I naturally found myself browsing Craigslist for any smoking deals on cat paraphernalia. What I found instead, was my next great idea: a local shelter is looking for people who would like to foster half grown kittens to help them socialize so they can be adopted before they are full grown, after which their chances of finding a permanent home diminish significantly. Here are some of the things I thought after reading this:
- A two week trial period with a cat, perfect!
- My kids can get used to having a cat around and learn to care for it.
- This kitty needs love and affection, of which we have lots! We can help it.
- There is a sweet orphan kitty out there yearning for us to pet it. She needs us.
I called the shelter, made an appointment, and on Valentine's Day we loaded up the kids for the exciting trip to a meeting at Petco to pick up our foster kitten. Cindy from the shelter had such a big heart to help the kitties (and us!) that she brought us TWO cats instead of one, and they were brother and sister! How precious. The poor sweet creatures had no names, so my kids named the girl Nosey and the boy Val (short for Valentine.) I'm not going to lie, driving home with our happy kids and two adorable kitties in a carrier in the car, Shane and I gave each other knowing looks across the car, communicating things like "we are the best parents ever" and "we care so much for these down-on-their-luck baby kitties and they might become such a part of our family that we cry when we have to give them back." Then we got home.
We decided to create a comfortable kitty apartment in our laundry room with a big litter box and baskets with soft blankets for beds. We introduced the cats...and opened the travel carrier door. There was hissing. There was scratching. There was an immediate escape plan that involved the cats lodging themselves behind my dryer. When we peered behind the washing machine, the felines let us know that sticking our hands back there to attempt retrieval was a very bad idea. Someone had to do it, and that someone was Shane, who sustained injuries as a repayment for his kindness. It all came crashing down. We had volunteered to care for FERAL CATS. For two weeks. And this was only day 1.
Day two our expectations changed a bit. We had all pictured cuddling a sweet kitty and now we were reduced to hoping that we could feed the cats without getting hurt. My big kids were disappointed, while Amelia (age 3) remained remarkably upbeat about our new pet situation. In fact she checked on them frequently and felt no need to close the door afterward.
Nosey was found within minutes under Josh's bed, but Val was not. We knew with about 90% certainty that no exterior doors had been opened while they had been roaming free, so we set to searching. Note: when someone else's feral cat is loose in your house, you have to drop all other plans and find it. Now. But we just could not find it. We searched rooms and closets, over and under furniture and closed doors along the way to narrow down the field. But no Val turned up, so then we wondered if we had missed him somewhere and actually shut him into a closet (please God not mine.) Then we searched again, and again. We started saying things to each other like "you don't need to look in there, I just checked that area thoroughly!" But still no cat. I did not think that I could get to sleep that night without knowing where he was. Here is a list of things that I thought as I drifted off to sleep:
- What am I going to tell Cindy? I lost your cat on day 2?
- What if he's in my closet pooping in my shoes?
- Is he watching me right now?
- If we looked everywhere 16 times tonight, what is going to change tomorrow?
- What if I NEVER find the cat and never know what happened?
- Should I lie and tell Cindy that we decided we wanted to keep Val and love him richly for the rest of his natural born days? Would she buy it?
- IS that darn cat capable of attacking my children in their sleep?
- Why oh why oh why did I think this was a good idea?!
As I thought these thoughts, I heard a sound. The cats had not made any sound up to this point, but as she apparently pined for her brother, Nosey began to YOWL like I have never heard before. It sounded much less like a cat and more like sounds coming from the lobotomy table at a haunted house. Painful. Wretched. Loud.
The next day, day 3: I decided to find the humor in it all and called my dad. He shared with me a very helpful story: when he was a kid they had a cat that climbed up so high in a very tall tree that they couldn't get it down and it LIVED UP IN THAT TREE WITH NO FOOD FOR 6 WEEKS!!! They tried to help it but couldn't climb that high to retrieve it or get food up to the poor thing. Moral of the story: I could be wondering for months what had become of Val. Then, as I thought the sort of things that get people committed to mental institutions, I see that cursed cat sneaking across my living room! With no sense of why I should hang up, I gave my Dad the play by play as I guided the cat back up the stairs and into Amelia's room, the only one with the door open. I took my eyes off of him for about .6 seconds to hang up with Dad and then I go to get the cat. But he isn't there. I can't find him. AGAIN.
I left Amelia's door open and the laundry room door open so Val could eat and use the litter box but I still didn't lay eyes on him for a whole day.
Day 4. Help me Ronda, it is time for this to END. Shane discovered Val in the drawer of Amelia's crib, which we still have set up. Josh wants to keep it for his kids. Val's capture and return to our laundry room happened. After scratching, hissing and generally acting like he needed an exorcism, Val and his loving sister have been reunited and in gratitude they tracked Frisky's kitty paté all over my once sparkling laundry room.
Aspirations to genius parenting have floated off with the wind and I am merely hoping to survive this very unfortunate incident. You know how foster/adoptive parents sometimes say, "We adopted him hoping to help him and improve his life and instead, he has made ours so much richer than we ever could have imagined"?
Yeah, this is nothing like that.
