sometimes Always

He aims to misbehave.

Posted on November 08, 2009 in pets | 3 Comments

Yesterday morning, Eddie wrote down a bunch of addresses and hours for a few of the RI animal shelters. We were also going to hit a couple of the pet stores as well, since a lot of them have adoption centers in them for a couple of hours every day. We hit the West Warwick animal shelter first, since it was closest, and the logic we had was that we’d start closest to home and work our way out so that if we wouldn’t be making two trips across the state if we found someone we liked. The West Warwick shelter was small, with a tiny cat room the size of our computer nook. They had several cats around 7 months old or so, as well as some slightly younger little calicoes that I wasn’t very interested in (one was feral and the other had some funky eye problems), and one fantastically mushy long-haired orange and white cat who seriously just needs someone who will allow him to be a lap cat 24/7.

From there we hit Petsmart’s adoption center, where much to my delight there were 4 tiny kittens waiting for adoption. Alas, they were waiting until TODAY, and since we were there YESTERDAY, I started making plans to camp out in their parking lot to be the first one into the store and in the adoption line this morning. I was also annoyed with the fact that it seemed as though the shelters required more paperwork than we had for Eddie’s visa. Notarized permission from a landlord, 7 years worth of history as a pet owner, essay questions regarding your opinions on declawing and indoor versus outdoor cats. Plus, several of the shelters had crazy fees for adoption. For instance, one of them charged a $90 adoption fee for a kitten, plus another $80 or so for the animal’s medical expenses incurred while in the shelter, the state’s required $20-$40 spay/neuter deposit (returned when your vet supplies proof of the procedure), and a mandatory $20 donation to the shelter. Let me repeat that, for those of you who read fast and don’t pay attention: a MANDATORY DONATION. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d always thought that a donation is something given freely. A mandatory donation was what we made when we paid the guy at Spike’s for a couple of junkyard dogs for lunch.

On the way home from Attleboro, Eddie pointed out that we might as well stop at the Pawtucket animal shelter since we weren’t too far from it. With nothing else to lose, we used the GPS in the phone to direct us to Slater Memorial Park and then followed the signs that eventually brought us to a building that was the polar opposite of the West Warwick shelter. It was huge, open, clean, airy… everything the other one wasn’t. They had a big wall of cats and kittens.

I immediately start pointing at this tiny little solid black kitten sleeping in a cage, and Eddie is down the line a little bit and tells me that I need to go see the one in the cage by him. I resume pointing at the little black one and he keeps telling me to come see the one next to him, so I walk down there. And there, in a cage with a tiny little gray and black tiger striped ball of energy, is a teeniest, most perfect little Siamese kitten with massive blue eyes. I’m in love because she’s just so cute, and Eddie pokes his fingers at her and she tries to shred his hand into ribbons from inside the cage. I mean, she’s going all Mr. Fantastic on him, stretching her paws out through the cage door to rip him apart.

At that point, another guy comes in with one of the animal control officers and he’s saying that his girlfriend had told him there was a little Siamese that she thought was very cute. Eddie steers me out towards the lobby so that I can try to lay claim to her first, and the animal control guy out there asks if we’re interested in her and we go back to the cage and have a showdown with the other guy over who gets the kitten. After Eddie decides not to be a tie-breaking vote, I tell the guy he can have her since his girlfriend had sent him down to get check her out before we even got there, and I’m thinking “oh god, that little beasty would eat every animal in the house.”

We head out to the lobby to do the paperwork on the little black ball of fur. The paperwork consisted of a sheet of paper that had several questions followed by a check boxes for “yes” and “no”. Questions such as “Do you have any other animals?” and “Do you have permission from your landlord to have this pet?” and “Do you agree to be responsible for this animal?” Never once were we asked to present vet records for other pets, vet names, landlord names, etc. We get everything signed and then we get to the adoption fee: a whole $15, plus the refundable $20 neutering deposit. The only hitch was that they didn’t take credit cards, so I had to go find an ATM, getting lost in Pawtucket because I ended up going out on the wrong side of the park. We had the carrier ready, so once I handed over the money we went and picked up our kitten and took him home.

As we were heading home, Eddie told me that the little Siamese had she left that poor guy’s hand dripping blood and managed to escape and leap off a counter top three times while I was out searching for money. We talked about names, since it was my turn to name the new animal. I had been thinking of trying to keep up with the theme of authors as cat names and only came up with Dickens as being a cool name, and then I was thinking of just going simple and calling him Q, and then going all science-nerdy and calling him Zero (black = absence of color = zero color), Eddie suggested naming him after one of the characters from Firefly, and I really liked Phineas. Eddie had to go out and buy some stuff for dinner and told me to come up with my top 3 names.

And when he came home, the kitten was Christened Mal, after Nathan Fillion’s awesome space cowboy. At this point the name is very appropriate, since we have a very cocky little kitten who just swaggers with attitude. He’s spent this morning alternating between sleeping on me and running up and down the house, with little bites of food in the middle. At this very moment, he’s trying to sleep on my shoulder while I type.

Tags: Firefly, kitten, Mal, Nathan Fillion, Rescues and Shelters

3 Responses to “He aims to misbehave.”

1. Kirsten says:

   11/8/2009 at 5:34 pm

   I totally <3 Mal…both your new furbaby, as well as his namesake. Though that orange and white foofy beast you mentioned would have been tempting. My favorite kitty is our Thor, a massive orange poof-ball with even less ambition than I possess.

   Reply
   • Crystal says:

     11/8/2009 at 6:51 pm

     He’s such a sweety. He napped with me on the couch today and seems to stick to me more than Eddie at this point much to Eddie’s dismay, but the other two animals always sleep with him so now it’s my turn to have an animal who likes me. We had to put a collar on him with a bell on it because when the lights are off we can’t see him at all.

     Reply
2. Elizabeth Kaylene says:

   11/15/2009 at 2:11 pm

   I already giggled all over your husband’s blog, but I’m gonna squee! again over your new kitty here. It’s nice to find some more Firefly fans!

   Reply

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail? You will receive notification whenever a new comment is posted to this entry.