Cat Tales ~ Three Little Kittens

So here I was with Ernie and three newborn kittens, living in an apartment that did not allow pets.  I took care of those kittens, feeding them with the syringe every three or four hours.  I worked, I went to school.  I know one weekend, my sister and her husband were visiting at my mom's and they babysat the kitties for me while I was at work.  My mom helped me, too, when she wasn't working.  The rest of the time?  I have no idea. It's all a blur. I put the kitties in a box lined with towels, wiped them down morning and night with a damp wash cloth, fed them, cleaned them. I raced home on my lunch break to feed them.  The little orange guy, the one who got stuck, didn’t grow as fast as the other two.  When their eyes opened and his didn’t, the vet told me to wipe his eyes with saline until they opened.  His eyes were gray, no defined pupils, and the vet said he was blind.  He was three weeks old when he died.

About this time, my relationship started to fall apart.  Things had been heading south for a while, so when my boyfriend made noise about staying with some friends in another town, I helped him pack.  He wanted to take the little girl kitty, but I said no.  A couple days later, he came into my work during the lunch rush and told me, in front of my coworkers and customers, that he’d accidentally stepped on the girl kitty and she died.  I think he lied to me.  When I got home that night I asked him what he did with her body, and he said he couldn’t remember.  Not only that, but if he’d really hurt that kitty I know he would have been much more upset.  I’m pretty sure she went with him to his new place.  I hope he gave her a good life.

So that left me with Ernie and one more baby, a little boy with beautiful black fur and big green eyes.  I named my little guy Spooky. Eventually I moved to a bigger place.  The landlord there didn’t have a problem with kitties.  Spooky grew into a great big bear of a kitty.   I started a new job and a new relationship, and things were pretty sweet.  Spooky was about two years old, Ernie was four, I think, when we lost Spooky.  My sweetie and I were standing in the open doorway, talking, and somehow, Spooky got out of the apartment without our noticing.  I honestly do not know how he could walk right past us, but that's what must have happened.  My sweetie left, I went to bed, and in the morning, when Spooky wasn't waiting at his food bowl for breakfast, I knew something was wrong.  I searched not only my apartment but the rest of the house, too.  We lived in a big Victorian home that had been divided into six apartments, and there was a back hall that nobody used, along with a dusty old attic and an empty basement.  He was nowhere to be found.  What baffles me still is that not only would Spooky have had to get by both of us at the door to my apartment, but he also would have had to get out of the big, heavy door at the bottom of the stairs.  None of my neighbors fessed up to letting him out.  I doubt they would lie to me, so they must not have seen him.  Being all black, if they didn't turn the lights on in the hall, I guess it could happen.  I ran ads in the paper, searched the neighborhood, called the pound and all the vet clinics, but I never found my Spooky.  

Come back tomorrow to meet Sassy ~