KUTE KITTEN
How We Met
July, 1999:
I'd spent years wondering, "Should I get a cat?"
Then a customer came into the liquor store that I managed.
"Do you have any boxes?" he asked.
"Yes," I answered, "but not a lot. I don't think that we can spare too many."
"All I need is one! My cat's pregnant, and she needs a place to have her kittens."
Immediately I gave him the biggest box we had. As we walked to the front of the store, he enthused about his cat. And I thought
"Should I ask?
Should I ask him for a kitten?"
But I didn't ask.
I spent the rest of the day fretting. Now I KNOW that I want a cat. But what do I do? Read the want ads? Go to shelters? I wish that I had someone I could trust...
I was sitting in the chair by the phone, thinking about cats.
Coworker Chris sighed "Okay," into the phone, then hung up. He turned to me and sarcastically asked
"So, Bill, do you want a free kitten?"
My heart jumped.
"Is she a female?" I asked.
Chris was startled by the sudden answer. He thought for a second, and said "Yeah, I think the white one's a girl."
"I'll take her!"
I spent the next week buying cat stuff and kittenproofing the house. There was only one way to get my new friend--who I'd named after the 60s cult movie "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!"--She'd have to be transported from Chris' house by his brother Jason, who also worked in our store. And stay in the noisy, busy store on its noisiest, busiest time, Saturday night.
Kill Kill went straight from the cat carrier to under the cigarette rack.
She'd never been outside Chris' house before. I slipped a piece of paper with a little smidgen of catnip under the rack to entice her.
Eventually she came out. She poked around a bit, then boldly began exploring the employee side of the register counter.
She knocked over a pint or two of liquor, but didn't break anything.
A surprisingly small amount of customers commented on this tiny, adorable kitten. That irked me. I mean, she's so CUTE!
Finally, after her long car trip and all the excitement, she konked out and slept during the loudest part of the night.
I added the vodka bottle as a reference to a thing on my old page.
It was now near closing time. I went over to the Lotto machine to deactivate the scratch tickets. "Looks like you have a little helper, Bill!" said Chris.
I looked down. Standing with her front paws on my Converses was Kill Kill. She had this "So...What do we do now?" look in her beautiful eyes.
She'd awakened, walked past the two brothers that she'd spent all her life with, and come straight to me.
"They say that cats choose their owners, Bill," said Chris. "And I think you've been chosen."
She purred herself to sleep in my lap twice that night.
And I'd found my best friend.
Further Reading:
"Now begins the Kill Kill Era" from my old webpage.