ODD mom moments

written by Aurora

When I was little I LOVED cats. My clearest memory of loving cats is probably Halloween when I was three.

In Sunday school nursery thingamajig (whatever you call it), I remember making a mask that was a cat. I scribbled and scrubbled all over my mask, convinced it was beautiful. It had a gold crown with like twenty blue jewels on it, a pink mini crown underneath the big one, red cheeks, and, not missing a single color in the crayon bin, multi-colored whiskers. 

When my class ended and my mom came to get me, I showed my mask to her proudly. She smiled and pretended to be impressed.

We all got to choose Halloween baskets that year, and I, of course, chose the cat one, which I also showed proudly to my mom who again- nevermind. WELL! Moving on…

Ok, so the second time that I remember just adoring cats was when I was six years old. This one also was around Halloween time. I was getting dressed one day in my favorite combination of clothes: a leopard shirt and some leopard pants. That was when I discovered what I wanted to be for Halloween. Since I had already just been a plain cat for two years, I decided instead I wanted to be a leopard. So I told my mom this and she bought me a leopard costume…reluctantly. 

Another time my mom and I were sitting on the front porch in front of our door talking.

“Mommy?” I asked.

“Hmm?” she responded.

“Can I get a cat?”

“No”

“Why?”

“You know why, we can’t afford one, it’s hard to take care of, and most of all me, you, and Miriam are allergic.”

“Then can we get a hairless one?” I asked, only focusing on the solution.

“No that is way too expensive.”

“I can help you pay.”

“It’s hard to take care of.”

“I can do hard things.”

“Aurora, I said no.”

“Then can we get a dog?”

“There will still be allergies.”

“What if we get a hairless dog?” I asked hopefully.

“No.”

“Then can we get a lizard?”

“No.”

“Turtle?”

“No.”

“Snake?”

“No.”

“Fish?”

“No.” 

“Cockroach?”

“NO!!!”

“Listen, Daddy and I will think about this. Ok?”

“Ok!”

I rushed into the backyard thinking that definitely meant I was going to get one.

I wasn’t.

We got a dog. Once I had a dog, I wasn’t so on about cats. 

One summer I was jumping on our neighbors’ trampoline (we shared yards because we were best friends and we were allowed to go on their trampoline whenever we wanted), doing some front flips when I heard a meowing in the distance. I ignored it.  

The next day our friends were over, and they heard the meowing too. They told me, and I decided that I would catch that cat and bring it in. I know it was kind of stupid, but I decided I would do it. I jumped over our fence blocking the weeds, hearing that the sound was coming from there.

There I saw a small golden tabby kitten.

I was running around the trail glancing in the weeds every once in awhile (meaning every second I was running) following the cat. I eventually caught it. I know you’re probably thinking that it wasn’t going to like it, and it didn’t, but it didn’t show it.

I brought him into the window well figuring he would never escape from there and he didn’t. I was allergic to cats and I decided that I could give him a bath to wash off all his fallen out hairs that were still on his body. I ordered the cat to stay in the window well. I went inside and got a gigantic bowl and a towel. I tried to be sneaky, but my dad caught me doing it.

“Where are you bringing those?” he asked.

“Outside,” I said.

“Okay but make sure to bring those in when you’re done with them.”

“I will.”

I went back to the window well and dropped the towel in. Then I went inside of our house again and filled it up with water. I went back to the window well, put the bowl of warm water on the grass, and jumped in, grabbing the bowl when I was safely on the ground. 

I crouched down near the kitten, picked it up, and put it in the water. It actually needed a bath, but not for the reasons I thought it needed one. The cat surprisingly didn’t struggle, although it did just stand there gazing up at me with worried eyes (like Finn, my dog, does when he is just about to take a bath too). It also splashed a bit and jumped out twice, but otherwise it was very obedient.

After the bath, I took the kitten out and wrapped it in a hand towel.  

When it was dried off, I brought it in through our basement and put it in a blue backpack that was see-through. I left it an eighth of the way open so the cat could breathe. Thoughtful of me wasn’t it?

I went up to the main floor and to the stairs leading up and found my dad with Matthew ordering pizza. I whispered to Matthew, “I have a surprise for you, Matthew.”

There was a meowing in the basement. My dad, Matthew, and I all heard it.

“What was that?” Matthew asked. 

“It was coming from downstairs,” said my dad.

“Let’s go then,” Matthew replied to my dad. 

I definitely didn’t want my dad to find out. I was rushing down the basement steps as fast as I could, thinking I could maybe hide the cat before my dad and Matthew came downstairs, but when I got down there, I found the blue backpack empty. The cat was somewhere in the depths of my huge, unfinished basement. 

We heard another meow.                  

“Why is there a cat down here?” my dad asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

“I don’t know,” I said eyeing the empty backpack 

“Let’s go look for the cat!”

“Me and Matthew will find him by ourselves,” I said.

“Ok,” said my dad.

We went looking for him and eventually found him, though it took some time. We caught him trying to squeeze under a shelf. 

When Miriam and Xander came back from a friend’s house we showed them with delight because I was not embarrassed anymore. I told them proudly that I had caught it.

We eventually named it Jasper. We found out that the cat was a boy and we had kept him for a while actually. (Well, we kept him for about two days.)

We brought him to places with us like when Mommy picked me up from drawing class.

Since half of my family (not including Finn) was allergic to cats, we had to get rid of Jasper. We cried and complained and said it wasn’t fair. Jasper was our friend, and we all loved him (except my dad). Even Finn loved him. We couldn’t let him go to a stranger family! So we ended up going to our next door neighbors’ house and asking them if they would like a cat for free. They said, “No, we already have a cat, but our cousins are looking for one.” 

And so the kitten went to their cousins. Jasper slept with our neighbors first, and then the next day their cousins came and said they would love the cat. They named it Lucky, which was actually a good name for him because he was mostly just luck. They thought he was a girl. I don’t know why but they did, so it was kind of lucky that they named him Lucky (hehe) because that can be a boy name and a girl name. I argued against him being a girl and said it was a boy, but they didn’t believe me. They eventually found out that I was right! But they probably didn’t remember that I said that.

We still call him Jasper today even though it’s not his name any more. And we haven’t seen him since he departed, which I think is really sad but we eventually got over it and have almost forgotten about him.

I hope now that I will see him again soon.