I have always hated animals and hated even more people who claimed to love them.
All pet lovers were nasty people, one step below swamp scum. Animals pee and poop on carpets. They walk on kitchen counter tops and salivate all over furniture.
Well, it seems the pet gods have a sense of humor, because I have adopted and fallen in love with a yellow tabby cat named Rover.
Rover first appeared to my bleedingheartcatloving daughter outside a pool party, clearly abandoned. I told her the cat must have seen her coming. He probably passed over a lot of other possible candidates that day, but when he saw her, he instinctively knew that she would practically weep over his little kitty eyes, promptly pick him up, take him home to food, air conditioning, and a full array of veterinary and grooming services.
He was not disappointed.
She was a mess. Rover became her baby. He was the “cutest, smartest and bestest” cat ever created. How sad she was to find that her apartment would allow pets only after residents pay a very hefty fee.
MOM TO THE RESCUE !
I, the bleedingheartdaughterloving parent, could not bear to have my daughter’s pet given to just anyone – so I told her I would take him. He came to me a little more than a week ago, and he has changed my life.
He IS the smartest, the cutest and the bestest. He is also teaching me that his sharp claws are gentle on my bare arms and that cat breath doesn’t stink. That $120.00 in a pet store is ok. That I can stroke him under his chin and around his ears and he will go to sleep in my lap. That scooping poop and cat pee are a small price to pay for the sound of his tiny feet skipping across my hardwood floors, the feel of his soft fur or the trustful look in his big yellow eyes. That when he was at the vet getting neutered, I would worry and take the evening off from work in case he needed me.
Having him is also teaching me that I can change — at 50 years old — and become a kinder, gentler person. I can share my home with him and be ok.
Who needs to bungee jump or climb mountains?! I can learn to love an animal. That is my new adventure.
In short, I am taken over! I am now owned by my cat. And like any person with a new calling, that’s all I want to talk about — my cat, with his new two-tiered cat house and his deluxe litter pan, the crazy things he does and the funny things he says.
Yes, SAYS !!
So you animal haters, go ahead. Laugh all you want. I have cat germs!
I am less than swamp scum and I am glad.
