FINE! NO CATS!

Jim has been adamant.  No more cats.  Every time I bring it up he just points to the door sills.  Miss Tinkerbell left scratches on nearly every single one of them.  Pine is very soft wood that scratches very easily.  Although, I guess to be fair I really should call them gouges and not scratches.  I never caught her in the act but it was clear she would stretch to full height on her back legs, dig in all of her claws and sharpen away.  It looked like a wolverine had been let loose in the house.  

After my daughter moved out and took Tinkerbell with her I was with Jim 100%.  No more litter boxes.  No more cat hair.   Then I started to miss having one around. They can be fun, especially the young ones.  There's no creature on earth more appreciative of a good scratching and petting than a cat.  My desire for a cat only got worse once I started volunteering at the shelter and saw how many homeless cats fill the cages.  Easily 4 - 5 times more than the dogs.  Poor babies. 

I started to test the waters...... all those poor homeless cats.  No way.  Then I tried the "birthday" thing.  Saying I wanted a Siamese kitten for my 49th.  No.  I promised to keep the soft caps on the claws.  No.  I begged.  No. FINE, NO CATS!

Then, as luck would have it, a friend of my daughter's was looking for an emergency kitten sitter.   I offered to take the cute little furball in.  I thought that Jim would change his mind about cats once he got some kitten time.  They're so much fun.

It worked.  Jim loved the kitten and the kitten loved Jim.  Jim loved to play with the kitten and we both loved watching the little guy run all over the house playing with anything he could get his paws on.  He'd run under the bed and hang from the box spring upside down like Spiderman waiting for someone to walk by so he could grab their toes.  

I started picking out names for the new little Siamese kitten I was going to get, Seymour, Biscuit, Ritz.  Then the kitten made a fatal mistake.  While I was getting ready for work one morning I left the kitten in with a sleeping Jim.  The kitten started to do mad dashes across the bed, clawing over top of Jim every time.  Zoom, zip.....  It was over.  One thing I've learned is Jim gets cranky when you mess with his sleep.  Jim's resolve to never own another cat returned with a vengeance.  

We returned the kitten.  I was a little sad to see him go but as I thought about it I realized visiting kittens are one thing but a long term commitment to a cat is another. Too bad you can't just rent a kitten once in awhile.