exactly a year ago today, i walked into my local animal shelter with one goal in mind. being a self-confessed sucker, i had gone to the shelter’s website earlier in the week & identified the cat who had been there the longest — a black adult kitty whose stay was 3 1/2 months & counting — and i was not leaving without her
jiji, as i would come to name her, was finishing up ringworm treatment & was thus in isolation away from the other shelter cats. the staff informed me that while she was safe to be adopted out, their shelter policy was that she had to be the last cat i saw that day to avoid any risk of spreading the infection. i assured them that that wasn’t an issue for me — i was here for one cat and one cat only
they repeatedly asked if i was sure about this — i really didn’t at least want to look at any other cats?? my answer didn’t change. yes, i’m sure. i’m here for jiji. no one else.
and so after a bit of paperwork and some wrangling to get her into the cat carrier, jiji came home with me
i quickly learned, however, that the reason jiji had been at the shelter for over three months was that she was, to put it mildly, an asshole. she had been a stray for some time, given birth to kittens very young, and generally had had a rough go of it, so her disposition was understandable, but the fact remained. she was an asshole. upon our first meeting in the shelter, she grabbed onto my foot and started bunny kicking my shoe with gusto. she stole my food as i was eating it. she scratched me so frequently that a coworker noticed & expressed concern.
however, up until this point, i’ve left out a critical detail of the story. a year ago today, possessed by some sort of temporary cat-induced mania, i didn’t adopt one cat. i adopted two.
on the same day, from a totally different shelter, i also adopted a tiny little one eyed kitten named ramona. how i ended up with ramona is another story for another day — the important part is that she was very young and very small, and she joined my hardened stray in my postage stamp sized apartment approximately one hour later
i did my absolute best to follow the standard protocol for introducing cats to each other. i tried to keep ramona in my bedroom and jiji in the living room and to introduce them slowly
but the separation lasted about two days, however, because jiji, my asshole former street cat who viewed my limbs as her favorite scratching posts, took one look at this scruffy little one eyed thing, asked “is anyone going to be this kitten’s mom?”
and didn’t wait for an answer
