It's 2:15 AM on the 26th of September, and Rich is showing me a tear on the seal in his trunk outside of one of his favorite bars, which kicked us (well, Rich) out a few minutes before. I am oblivious to the four-legged animal sniffing my shoes until Rich shouts, "Oh my God, a cat!!" I jump in the air in fright, irrationally believing that it was a raccoon (I still don't know why) at the same moment that the kitten jumps back, startled.
"Quick, grab it so we can take it home with us!!" says a very drunk Rich. Not in the mood to argue with a drunk that I'd spent most of the evening bickering with, I grab the stray and shove it at him before climbing into the driver's seat.
Rich is uncharacteristically excited about having his own cat for the next five minutes. Then suddenly reality comes crashing down, and he starts going off. "Oh my God, what are we doing?? Pull over, we're leaving this cat." I tell Rich in no uncertain terms that no, I will NOT pull over and leave this poor defenseless kitten stranded on the side of the highway for some car to run over. We had the cat at his insistence, and that was that. He quieted down, and got excited again, referring to the feline as a male and dubbing it Smoke.
We get home and I take is straight into the bathroom, where I clean its eyes and wipe it down with a wet cloth. I then pick it up for a quick gender confirmation.
"Rich?? It's a girl."
"What?! Are you sure."
I roll my eyes. "Yes."
"How do you know??" Hm.
The next twenty-four hours for Rich are spent in denial of the kitten's gender. He finally settles on the name SoCo for her, because she was found outside a bar. And she is a pretty little thing, dark grey with brown eyes and a tiny white patch under her neck and another on her belly.
And now Rich is gone to Afghanistan for a year while I raise his kitten. Aw, thanks honey.
2 comments:
Maybe you can switch the cat's name to Rich? Make you miss him less?
My cousin is in Afghanistan now too. He's flying, as he puts it, dignitaries. In other words, safe air space, high target. Meh.
He's Reserve. They kept retraining him in new aircraft (like 3 or 4) as needs changed in Iraq. Then he blew out his knee playing basketball right before he was supposed to ship out. So he missed Iraq altogether.
But my other kid cousin was in the first wave into Iraq. CNN's imbedded reporter was in his personnel carrier. They took the University in Bahgdad.
Ok. That's everything military I know. Not much. :/
You're brilliant. How can I miss Rich if Rich is the once scratching up my body in my sleep?!
I know too many deployed people to keep track of them all. I just hope they're okay and wait to celebrate their return with copious amounts of liquor.
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