Catsitting

Here’s a cute story Jenn and I wanted to share.

My parents have been spending this week on a cruise. Yes, another one! Since Jenn and I live the closest, we have been in charge of their house - getting the mail and papers, and generally making sure everything is okay.

Well, on Thursday I decided to take a look around the outside of the house because they have a vandal neighbor. As we walked around the side, out jumps a kitten from the bushes. We figured it belonged to the neighbors next door, and it somehow managed to get out of their fenced yard. But as we tried to leave, it kept following us. So we rang the neighbors’ doorbell... No answer. Great.

We tried repeatedly to just leave, but by the time we made it to the car, it would be hopping frantically after us. So then I stuck my hand through their fence and dropped the kitten inside. It made a lot of sad noises, but we got into the car and began to drive away. We hadn’t even made it 30 feet before the kitten was back out and running into the street. Fine!

What do we do? We can’t just leave it to follow us and get lost and/or hit by a car. It seemed hungry, but we knew better than to feed it as my parents’ house, where it would return, expecting more. My mom is allergic to cats. So we thought we would give it some milk, but put the bowl in the neighbors’ front yard, and while it drinks, we will leave... Great plan, except my parents left town... no milk in the fridge. Wonderful!!

I got some water, but it was still clearly hungry. I looked in the fridge for items it might eat. But I had no idea what was good or bad for it. We tried meat, but it wouldn’t eat it. Finally we tried cheese, and it inhaled every little piece. It seems that it wasn’t just hungry, it was starving.

All the while, I’m hoping Jenn isn’t getting too attached to this under 6 month-old kitten. We can’t afford to take care of it, it would eat our fish, destroy the furniture, and most importantly, it’s not ours! But we don’t want to be held responsible if it gets lost or dies. After waiting for nearly an hour for the neighbors to come home, we were hot, tired, and had nothing to do. So we decide to take it home, but come back to return it later.

Note: Do NOT take kittens on car rides. It freaked out! It made all sorts of horrible noises, was climbing all over the place, and it actually tried to jump out the window. Thankfully it was closed, but I doubt the cat appreciated it too much. When it crawled under Jenn’s seat, I grabbed it. Being held seemed to calm her down.

We knew the kitten wasn’t going to find its way to our house again, so we weren’t afraid of feeding it there. But when we tried to give her milk, she acted strange. She wouldn’t drink it, and behaved like it never had milk before. Soon after that, she scarfed down a dead bug. This cat had been on its own for a while. I’ll admit, at that point, I was tempted to keep it. But the reasons why we couldn’t were still in place.

The kitten took a nap outside on one of our blankets while I read and Jenn drew. Afterwards, we drove the kitten back to the neighbors’ house. Again, it freaked out, but I was quicker to hold on to it this time. We saw that someone was home, we knocked on the door, and the kid who answered seemed to recognize the cat, and was very surprised to see it again. He said it was theirs, we handed it over, and that was the end of it.

Don’t tell Jenn, but even if she didn’t get attached... I did.