Dave and I decided the time had come for us to find another
cat, but not just any cat. We needed a playful cat that would entertain
irritable Olive when we weren't home. A cat that is gentle with humans but
catty enough to resist any bullying from our tuxedoed beast. And this cat would
also preferable have hemophilia or an eye patch. If I had a beautiful rainbow
of foster children, at least one of them would have an eye patch.
We started browsing cats the day I failed my road test. Dave
thought that rooms full of cats would cheer me up. We went to Pets Alive in Elmsford, NY that appeared to be in the middle of a land
development project. The area around the shelter was a wasteland of bulldozers
and mud with the occasional out-of-place jogger with a pit bull.
In the elderly cat room, tubby cats rubbed up against our
shins and shed their dead fur on our pants. I knelt down to pet a black cat and
he answered with a roundhouse kick to my hand.
“Some people are put off by that,” said the volunteer who was
giving us the tour. “But he’s a really sweet cat.”
We explained that Olive plays a bit rough and we needed a
cat that could keep up with Olive’s frenetic kitten energy, perhaps a big,
burly adult with fists instead of paws. She introduced us to an affectionate
ginger with a pot-belly named Cobb. The shelter has a program where you adopt
an older cat and the shelter pays the vet bills for the rest of kitty’s life.
Some people are put off of elderly cats by the prospect of extra vet visits.
I cleaned my wounds from the ninja cat and we moved on to
the littler monsters. Next to the kitten room, construction rattled the walls
and all of the youngsters seemed perturbed. An elegant Russian blue frowning in
the corner took a swing at my approaching hand. The kittens all buried
themselves under the furniture. One man found success in the bustling kitten
room, holding up a robust young adult ginger.
“I want to adopt this cat,” he said serenely. “What is his
name?”
“Muffin,” the girl said.
“No. His name is Buster now,” the man said, letting the cat
scramble away. “Buster. Do you have another cat somewhere in this shelter that
is as insouciant and gregarious as Buster?”
After warding off a case of cat scratch fever in the ladies’
room, Dave and I discussed the possibility of adopting Cobb.
“It’s hard for me to have any strong feelings of affection for these
cats when they keep ripping my hands open,” I muttered.
It was time to call it a day and get some Band-Aids. I
wondered if we would ever bond with another cat the way we bonded with Olive.
One week later we were in the New Rochelle Humane Society
where we once walked out with a box full of Olive. In the first room full of cats, I made friends with yet another tubby ginger cat.
“Maybe a tubby ginger cat was just meant to be,” I sighed.
“He only loves you because he wants to go outside. Look,
he’s standing at the door.”
Sure enough, the ginger was only using me for my ability to
turn a doorknob. He meowed at the door handle and gave me an urgent look of longing. All the other cats in the room were asleep or indifferent. We
moved on to the Sunshine room, a room the size of a closet with cat trees
extending high above me. An enormous gray cat looked down at us from above. A
brown Maine Coon named Buni with long, luxurious fur rubbed against our legs. She was
happy to let us pet her for about five seconds before lashing out with extended
claws. Buni is the sort of girl who would kiss you on the first date and then
smack you across the cheek and cry, “What kind of girl do you think I am?”
The handsome gray cat, Wolfie, turned out to be a gentle giant and
Dave lavished him with attention that shy cats at shelters rarely get.
“I would adopt Wolfie if we didn’t already have a cat. And
if I never intended to get another cat. Or any other pets for the next twenty
years,” I admitted. A shy cat would surely incur Olive’s wrath.
By the food dishes, a black and white tuxedo cat dipped her
paws into the water bowl and licked the dew from between her toes. The mark of
a wild cat. There was no information about her tacked on the wall, so we asked
a volunteer about her. Her name was Dallas and she was found in a garage with a
litter of kittens. She was about eleven months old and all of her kittens had
already been adopted. We can adopt our own little teen mom, I thought to
myself.
When we adopted Olive, we were at the shelter for hours
agonizing over the decision, holding various kittens in the isolation room,
trying them on. Adopting Dallas was a split second decision. Just a few minutes
after leaving the Sunshine room I was holding a cardboard carrying case and
Dave was signing documents. It was exhilarating.
We have since renamed our new kitty Penelope. She frequently
drinks out of the toilet and has a meow like a creaky closet door. Penny’s tail
is crooked like a lightning bolt and I wonder what kind of bar fights she
brawled in before she got knocked up.
Olive slowly is getting used to Penny. At first she hissed
and sequestered Penny in the bathroom. Just the smell of my Penny-scented hand
would send her into a fit. Now Olive is curious. She tries to play with Penny,
but Penny doesn’t trust her after that initial territory war. I wonder what kind
of solution Jackson Galaxy, Cat Behaviorist would produce from his magic guitar
case and the answer is clear: a feather on a stick. Somebody get me a feather
on a stick.
