Kitty Litters

“How’s your kitty, Frying Pan?” my friend asked.

“Her name is Skillet.”

“Why’d you name her Frying Pan, I mean Skillet?”

“Because my daughter wouldn’t let me name her Drool.”

This conversation took place several years ago, shortly before Skillet disappeared for the last time. She was an unplanned family member, a strange looking tortoise shell cat who despite being uninvited and unwanted, turned out to be the most grateful cat I ever called mine.

After my divorce, it took years to buy my own sweet little split-level house. Once settled in, I acquiesced to the demand for a Siamese cat. And so, we happily brought Koko (the Lord High Executioner from The Mikado) into our home. I’d named him that expecting certain behaviors, having owned other Siamese cats before him.

Of course, he was neutered. I’d learned the lesson the hard way years earlier that you don’t want your male cat marking his territory inside your house!

But it turned out to be a misnomer. He was the sweetest, most loving cat I’ve ever known. He purred for hours without ceasing. If he finally fell asleep and stopped, the slightest touch would start him up again.

I remember Erica calling to me to come get him out of her bedroom one night. “He won’t stop purring and I can’t get any sleep!” she complained.

So, for as long as he lived, he slept with me, one paw on my face, like the Vulcan Mind Meld, whiskers often sticking up my nostril. It wasn’t always what I wanted, but I felt loved.

Koko wasn’t quite a year old when winter struck and this poor little freezing kitten showed up at our front door, camping out under the large Juniper bushes under our living room window.

I could barely afford to care for the cat that I had paid for and I was not going to be the stooge for that Cat-lady who lived across the street. She let her cats procreate at an ungodly rate and then expected everybody else to care for them. No Siree! This was from her cat’s latest litter and I didn’t know how it found its way to my front stoop.

Still, I didn’t want to wake up one frosty morning and have my children find a stiff catcicle on the welcome mat. So, I found a smallish box and an old towel, snugged it under the bushes faced to keep the bitter wind and rain or snow out, and periodically put a little bowl of warmed milk out, just in case the kitten was too stupid to go home to its mother across the street.

Never-the-less, the kitten did have a sort of strange endearing quality. Whenever anyone petted it, or even LOOKED at it in a kindly fashion, it purred so hard that it DROOLED. The tiniest act of kindness, or even lack of meanness, elicited this response.

Somehow that kitten survived the winter. In early spring it was literally climbing up the brick façade of my house, perching on my window sill and pawing at the windows to get inside.

“Oh, Mom, look!” cried Erica and Matthew. “She wants to come in!”

“Over my dead body!” I closed the blinds so the cat could not spy on us.

Next, she was atop the window air conditioner in the breakfast room, pawing at the window. I closed the blinds there, too. Minutes later, it had scaled the bricks on the back of the house and was pawing at the kitchen window, meowing pitifully.

“Oh, Mom!” the children cried, “We can’t live in the house with all the blinds drawn hiding from a cat!”

That Sunday night a bitterly cold, rainy storm was pounding the house and the small cat was desperate to come inside.

“Okay, just for tonight,” I relented, “but she has to stay in the laundry/storage/utility room! At least she’ll be safe and out of the storm for a night.”

I doubted that she was litter trained, but I set up a temporary litter station for her.

The next day the children had left for school and I was hurrying to leave for work. I took care of Koko and opened the door to the laundry room to extract the interloper.

But, I couldn’t find her anywhere!

“I’ll deal with this when I get home,” I promised myself, and headed off to work.

At home again, I heard strange noises coming from the laundry room. The cat had found my stash of burlap fabric used for my art exhibit backdrops. And she had exploded all over it, with four kittens!

I couldn’t possibly throw out this little family into the lingering winter. Still, I worried what Koko would do when he discovered these babies the size of mice in his house.

Years ago, I could have given you a blow-by-blow description as to what happened after I decided to let the cat family stay in the house until they were weaned. Be relieved that I can give you only the abridged edition.

Momma Cat was an outdoor cat, and had to be allowed to come and go as she needed, but the kittens stayed inside. There was a small pet door already installed in the laundry room door, and it turns out, that cat was a great escape artist. I tried blocking it. I tried packing tape. I tried everything, but not only did Momma get out, but all the babies, too.

Momma Cat was not nearly as good a parent as Koko turned out to be. He cared for those kittens AND their momma, keeping them washed and trained in the art of play and toileting.

So, the day arrived when the kittens were fully weaned and I was able to take them to a local pet shop, which accepted them because they had never been outside. I was determined that Momma Cat was NOT mine, but I took her to the vet to get her shots and have her spayed, just the same.

Darn if that cat was not ALREADY PREGNANT again!

Well, the kittens were gone and it was now summer, and that cat did not need to be in my house, so out she went. And she went straight to my shed, where she gave birth to six more kittens! When she turned up on the kitchen windowsill with a kitten in her mouth, meowed, and accidentally dropped that baby, I thought Erica was going to have a heart attack.

“Mom! If you don’t let her in, she’s going to kill all of her kittens!”

So, we gathered up the kittens and the momma and went through the whole thing all over again. But this time, the pet shop wouldn’t take the kittens because they’d been outside. I ended up paying for their shots, ear mites, worming, etc. paid for ads in the paper, and GAVE each one away, along with a box of Kitten Chow.

And when I took the momma cat to the vet to have her spayed, she was PREGNANT AGAIN! What a LOOSE LADY she was! I’m sorry if it is a blotch on my soul, but I paid for a kitty abortion and spaying and adopted that cat, which meant I had to name her.

 Drool having been nixed, she reminded me of an old black skillet with patches of rust and just a little hint of white. Thus, she was named Skillet.

My mother had told me a cat like that doesn’t really adopt the owner as much as she does the HOUSE. So, when I bought and moved to another house a few miles away, I didn’t know if Skillet would make the move, if she would STAY in the new house or wander back to the old one. But she and Koko had formed a strong bond and Skillet made certain that she would not be left behind, jumping in the packing boxes and into the car. Oh no… she was definitely coming with me!

And while I’ve already said that Koko was absolutely the sweetest and most LOVING cat, Skillet was the most GRATEFUL cat, showing her appreciation at every opportunity with “gifts from the garden,” etc.

In this second house, the back door and the kitchen window opened onto a broad deck. Except in bad weather, I would leave the window over the kitchen sink open for the cats to come and go as they pleased. Koko knew the sound of my car. As I approached my cul-de-sac, I would see him racing through the neighbors’ yards to beat me to the driveway when I returned home.

Imagine my joy, entering the house after work and finding a squirrel head erect on its stump, greeting me in the middle of the kitchen floor, with probably a gallbladder or some other indelicate organ sitting on the floor next to it.

As a matter of fact, Koko and Skillet had an unbeatable hunting method wherein Koko would lie on the asphalt driveway, arms stretched out, and Skillet would chase the mouse, chipmunk, vole, or mole into his grasp and he would finish it off. I’m sorry to say, I think the two of them completely eradicated the chipmunk population in my wooded yard.

I was working to furnish this new home, mostly with items from Good Will or the DAV store, including a large, beautiful red Oriental rug, which Skillet immediately peed on. Since she was born feral, she was only semi-litterbox trained, she had to be an indoor/outdoor cat. It was decided not to purchase any expensive or valuable rugs until Skillet died because she just couldn’t be trusted.

Koko lived only about 12 years and didn’t make the move to Urbanna. But Skillet made the move with us, and like Koko, she’d hear my car coming down the drive, jump out in front of it and catch frogs in the headlights for me. She lived to be 21 years old, and it makes me too sad to talk about her death.

We never did buy those special rugs.