"The Shelter for Dysfunctional Felines"

Currently Reading: Have about 50 pages left of Carribbean. Should have it finished tonight!


Spring, 1991.

Smokey, my adopted cat, decides to go into labor on my lap.

Ick.

But five hours later, the most adorable kittens were born...and proved yet again, that even though they may come from the same litter, they have very different personalities!

Dysfunctional Feline #1: Identity Crisis
First up was a black and white 'female'. Had I been thinking more clearly at 10 pm, I would have named 'her' Bandit. (To go with Smokey...okay...too cute.) But, this kitten immediately gets up and blindly stumbles around, falling over her mother's paws, bumping into the wall, and when the next one was born, tried to pick a fight with it. Since 'Roseanne' was popular at the time, we called her 'Rosie'. Six months later, we discovered 'she' was a 'he', so changed the spelling to 'Rosey'.

Rosey died of a heart attack at age 13.

Dysfunctional Feline #2: Abuse Victim
As stated, Tag-A-Long, or Tag for short, arrived next. He was a sleek, short-haired black kitten, whose 'sister', older by an hour, attacked him the minute he was cleaned off. His eyes were the last to open; he was a 'Momma's Boy'; and this poor cat provided many comical moments. My hubby accidently stepped on him when he was a month old, and we were afraid we were about to lose him. He crawled into the closet to nurse his bloody nose and swelling eye, and resisted my efforts to help. Two days later, he was fine.

He also:
-fell into a hot tub of water
-jumped across the toilet while it was in use, needing an immediate bath
-refused to play with any cat toys, preferring to chase a wadded up kleenex
-scratched frantically at any closed door; when opened, he did the same on the other side, wanting back in!
-developed a love of the outdoors in his later years and refused to come inside.
-outlived his three siblings by an entire year.

Dysfunctional Feline #3: Incest Victim
Ten minutes after midnight, Gizmo was born. She had the easist birth; D wanted to call her 'Slider'. But she resembled a gremlin, totally black like Tag, only she had long fur. Giz had her mom's personality: She only wanted affection if she asked for it. And when she wanted it, be prepared to carry her around or stay still for a half an hour! When she was five or six months old, she came into an early heat, and Tag just knew he had to have her for a mate! We quickly whisked the boys off to the vet (this is when we discovered why Tag was only going after Giz!) and a month later, had Gizzie fixed. Smokey had already been taken to the vet as soon as the kittens were weaned!

She was terribly unhappy when my kids brought home a stray female kitten, and a year later, both females disappeared into the woods. Gizmo was six; Fluffy one year.

Dysfunctional Feline #4: Eating Disorder
The last kitten, a gray tiger-striped, made his loud appearance at 1 am. Tiger quickly became my favorite, and he was the first to venture away from Momma Cat; he developed a taste for table scraps and soon was not eating his Kitten Chow! We ended up mixing an egg in with the food for two days, until he realized he was no longer being allowed to eat People Food.

Tiger and D had a love/hate relationship; in 2004, shortly after my caboose was born, he 'staged' his own death to make it look as if D ran over him with the car...D put the car in gear; felt the wheel roll over something; got out to look. Discovered Tiger...and when he woke me up to tell me, he discovered the cat was stiff; he'd been dead for several hours.

"That damn cat staged it to look like I killed him!"

I wrote a poem about our new babies, but it is in storage. If I ever unearth it, I'll post it!