Such a deal I had for you! Could have had ‘em just like that. But no, nobody stepped up to get in on the giveaway. Ask me nice and maybe arrangements can be made. Bargains! Freebies! They’ll be going fast, lemme tell ya.
What’s that? Some timid, unadventurous soul asks what the hubbub is about. What’s being given away? Well, that’s going to spoil the surprise when you find the box on your doorstep, isn’t it?
Here’s the scoop. IBM (Irresponsible Bad Mamma), my long-time front porch-dwelling cat has just had her latest, umpteenth litter of kittens. I was pretty sure that this event was imminent, so I put a wooden box on the back step with a towel inside and a half lid on top, hoping that she would deign to call this home and have the new family in there. The whole project was kind of a last-ditch effort to get her to have the new additions somewhere accessible, which she has not done before. There were a couple of failed proposals with containers under the back porch, which she would have no truck with at all. Sometimes she would sneak over into a backyard on Water St. and have them in the neighbors’ boat—under the canvas cover; heaven only knows how she got under there, I don’t think that she went fishing with them—could be wrong. Anyway a since-moved neighbor girl would follow her and locate the little ones, then bring them here, of all places, to board in the garage until the little fuzzies could be palmed off on various friends and relatives. Then the neighbor girl moved away and the whole process got more complicated. At least two litters just sort of disappeared. Could have been lost to ‘coons or ‘possums or irritable old tomcats, in any case, lost they were.
My next-to-last cat acquisition, Ms Butterscotch came to live here during one episode and “Grimmy” (AKA Grimalkin), our newest boarder survived long enough for me to get my hands on her and introduce her to the delights of indoor eating…not to mention the fact that she’s terminally cute. In between, I think that there were at least two other stabs at motherhood which didn’t turn out as well. One might be of a mind to recall a line from “Othello”, Act 5, scene 2 concerning “…one that loved not wisely but too well….” That was our IBM.
So, anyway, IBM had kittens IN the box; I saw them. I did wonder if they would survive but she was pretty good about seeing that “dinner was served” on a regular basis. When she got out one day to have lunch on the back step, I looked in the box and spotted three little critters—one black, one gray, one gold. They seemed to be O.K., moving and all, so I left them alone and just sort of kept watch on them, making sure that they would not get out once their eyes were open. They were just about getting to that place when they disappeared! Gone! Then I spotted IBM carrying the gray in her mouth heading around the corner of the porch. She…they…disappeared and I haven’t seen any of them since. She still turns up for lunch…and dinner…and breakfast, so I’m thinking she’s stashed them someplace, as she has before. Most likely location is under the front porch; that’s where she’s hidden them before. The problem is then the fact that I cannot get under the front porch; I can’t even SEE under the front porch(unlike the back porch, where I stick stuff –all kinds of stuff, chairs, bird feeders, flower pots…stuff for winter storage). Generally, the first inkling I get that there are kittens under there is when I hear meowing coming from under my feet. Then, eventually, the kittens start exploring and figuring out how to get out from under there to play; They then appear on the front porch, wild as March Hares and really hard to get ahold of (just like their mamma). Grimmy was one of those. Took a couple of months to finally manage to persuade her that access to better food was worth the possibility of being picked up. Her now-dearly-departed sibling wasn’t having any of that and apparently attempted to cross the road, with tragic results.
So…that’s where we stand right now, three kittens, just beginning to open their eyes, missing, maybe under the porch, maybe not. Anyone wishing to put in a bid for one of these exotic, adventurous, fabulous felines, just give me a call. You can still get a great deal—like FREE CATS!
Which led me to some quotations about cats that I found for another project (There were also some about dogs and even insects and cows. They’ll turn up some other time, no doubt.). Here are a few of them :
Cats are a waste of fur.—Rita Rudner
Every life should have nine cats.—Anonymous (I’m close to making my quota)
If cats could talk, they would lie.–J. Kpoack
