At Least I Knew How She Felt

Our cat was not always our cat. She was, in fact, the cat that my best friend and (second) college roommate decided to get when we moved into our first apartment together. It was still summer and school had not yet reconvened. We’d moved our belongings into the tiny apartment and furnished it with borrowed items for the most part. I bought a tall shelf that we put together amidst several beers, lamenting the heat in our non-air-conditioned apartment. That shelf still stands in my living room today, holding new treasures mostly gotten long after college graduation.

The cat is here with me too—older, grayer, growing arthritic—but she remains a link to my youthful days when I was teetering between childhood and adulthood. When we picked her up at the run-down home that was giving away free kittens, she was mewing pitifully and trying to climb my leg. She had a beautiful cream-colored coat, gigantic ice blue eyes and impossibly oversized ears. She also had fleas and ear mites. Regardless, we were determined to bring this waif-like kitten home with us.

As the months passed, I grew attached to that goofy kitten that gnawed her way through the wires of my headphones at least twice. We had bunk beds that I hung my robe from that she used as a ladder to reach the top bunk. It was entertaining to see her tiny body working so hard to climb so high and when she reached the top she would curl herself into a ball and take a long nap.

Circumstances dictated that the furry nuisance that I had grown to love would be mine by that January. I had graduated by that time and moved home to live with my parents and try to find a job. The cat moved with me.

I taught her to come when she was called and to sit and lay down on command for a treat. I would fall asleep with her at the foot of my bed and wake up with her on my chest happily purring away, both of her front legs tucked under her.

But I was in my early twenties and enjoyed meeting friends for a night out dancing and drinking and often left my kitten for hours. This being left alone (although my parents were usually home) did not sit well with my kitten. I often learned of her dissatisfaction with my absence as soon as I walked into my bedroom (often in the early morning hours). She would leave me presents in the same area of my carpet every time. While I understood she was angry with me for leaving her so often, I quickly tired of her using a corner of my bedroom as a litter box and set about trying to stop the practice.

Since she seemed fond of defecating in the same area I took some plastic wrap and covered the area. Cats do not particularly like to walk on plastic, especially if it is clingy plastic. It only took a few days of this procedure to get her to stop, however, once I moved again to be with my husband she let her discomfort about the move be known in much the same way. Then she would leave her presents by the front door. Not the most welcoming thing when you want to have friends visit. She eventually adjusted again but wow those were some irritating times. Come to think of it, she was just breaking me in to deal with defiant children, right?

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