Feline's Aid Society

Most people have heard of the Children's Aid Society. They're the people that come and take away your children for various reasons. The idea is that they act in the best interests on the child. Few people have heard of the Feline Aid Society. It's a smaller organization and really has one administrator and one client. The administrator would be my mother. The client would be my feline. I am the one who gets my cat taken away from me. It's always in the best interests of my cat.

I grew up with a dog. We were best friends and when he had to be put down I missed him. I started the campaign for another dog but when it became obvious that a dog was out of the question, I settled for a cat. I had spent my entire life up until that point being scared of cats. Suddenly I had a small kitten in my house. It was cute even when it tried to poke my eye out. I then found myself at school without an animal in the house. This was not right.

I timed the buying of my cat carefully. Right after my micro midterm I headed to the pet store. I had a week in which to settle a kitten into my routine before my professors started ruining my life again with assignments. I wanted a male cat. The pet store only had two kittens and they were both female. I only had a week. I choose the one that seemed to like me best.

Oh the attitude.

My cat was not an easy kitten. The details of our power struggles are long and tedious. The first time my cat was taken away was in last summer. I was going away for a few weeks. I didn't want to leave my room mate to look after my cat although she was more than willing. My apartment had no air conditioning and summer was starting to heat up. The Feline's Aid Society came to the rescue and took the cat to a well air-conditioned house. This house also has another cat which my cat enjoys fighting. My cat spent the summer there. I sweltered in my apartment as I spent all my waking time on my paper.

My Cat is the smaller one. She started it.

This time my cat was taken away because I was going away again. I think the Feline's Aid Society also decided it was time we were separated before we killed each other. My cat and I were not adjusting well to the working world. I was gone for longer periods of time and I was tired. The result was less cat time. Not one to suffer in silence, she was making her feelings known by slowly pushing all breakables off all surfaces. She commenced this activity at 6:30am and then proceeded to start a little bit earlier each day. I think she had reached 4:30am. Net result was that I was getting hardly any sleep.

The first week she was gone I had a proper night's sleep. The next week I missed her. Before she comes back, I'm going to install shelves and move all breakables beyond cat reach. I'm also marking cat time in pen in my organiser. This time round we'll both get a proper night's sleep. The Feline's Aid Society is not one to be overused. The previous stint, my cat wrecked the screen door most spectacularly and this time she's working on destroying the furniture. And then there's the therapy bills for the other cat . . . .

My cat's name is Auburn. The other cat is Stanley. Bonus points for those who recognize the name theme. Family members and close friends may not play due to unfair advantage of already knowing.