Brag Spot

StoryCircle honored me as Writer of the Month for May!!!!! I am a bit amused by this as the following is the story they selected for this honor and it was one that I turned in unedited at the last minute (we have a writing assignment each month and sometimes I miss the deadline).

How I Ended Up With 13 Indoor Cats (at one time)

I can't count the number of cats that came and went through my childhood years. They just kind of mysteriously weave in and out of the family photo albums. But the one thing that is certain, there was always at least one cat in our household, until I got married.

My husband was allergic to cats. Or so he told me. But then again, he had a Siamese cat named Gertrude throughout his growing up years. He claimed that she had some special kind of dander that he could tolerate. Since my preference for cats was always the long-haired variety, a definite sneeze attack to my husband, I figured that my cat days were long gone with the exchange of the marriage vows.

Three months into the marriage he came home from work with a cardboard box emitting the most distinctive of all yowls, the unmistakable yowls of a mama cat giving birth. It seems Mama Kitty, a stray cat from my husband's newspaper district, had selected one of the Tribune newspaper boxes as a good place to have her kittens. Of course my husband didn't have the heart to leave her there so she became the first resident cat in our new home. I just had to keep two of her litter too. One because she was long-haired and calico. The other because he was so ugly that no one would take him. Those cats all lived long happy lives.

Meanwhile my husband's allergies disappeared. Then we had kids, two boys. More cats came and went as the boys grew up and started bringing home strays here and there. Then one day a feral cat showed up. She had babies. We trapped cats, neutered cats, tamed cats and tried our best to find homes for them. People didn't seem to want those feral rejects. It got out of control. Soon we realized that there were 13 cats that were allowed to come inside the house and an undetermined amount of midnight raiders to the food source outside the house. Okay, I know, we might have been just a little too generous with the cat food in those days.

My son is living in our old house now and has kicked the five cats left in our little colony outside because he has turned into a "dog person" (girl friends can do that to a guy you know). It's okay though. They have shelter and food and a great big hillside to romp in. We get to visit daily.

Note: I do have two cats at my apartment. It was a tough decision but I did have to choose the best candidates for this indoor lifestyle.