Kittens

Kittens

When I was seven I had a cat named Kitty. Real original, I know. She was always kind of a sickly cat and she took to peeing on our stair landing. Strangely, other cats we owned after Kitty followed in her footsteps. My mom was ready to kill those cats. Anyway, one day when my family and I came home from our painfully long three hour church service, I saw Kitty come out of a closet under the stairs looking a whole lot skinnier than she usually did. Either she had coughed up a couple hundred hairballs or, which my mom suggested, she had been pregnant and had given birth. A normal family would have opened the closet door to discover the kittens, but my siblings didn’t believe in cleaning (except for you, Ann!) and this closet had stuff piled up about eight feet high. And this closet is big. When it is actually cleaned out you can walk around in it. So we started unloading all of the who knows what crap was in there (probably old shoes, deflated soccer and basketballs and camping gear). Finally, there they were in the very back of the closet. Five tiny little kittens all huddled up together. Kitty laid down next to them.

Those kittens were maddeningly cute and I was glued to them for the next six weeks. I started naming them. One was black with a white spot on his chin. I named him Smokey. One always seemed to be eating and was consequently fat—Puff Mama. She had grey fur that was longer than all of the other kittens’. One was white so naturally I had to name him Whitey Tighty. Then there was Feisty (probably named after myself) who was dark grey and liked to pick fights with the other kittens. And then the last one. Light grey, affectionate and sweet. I never did think of a name for that kitten that stuck. Seth suggested Sweetie, which disgusted me. And my younger brother Seth, who was addicted to toy weapons and sword fighting and sports and all things little boy-like had suggested the name Sweetie?! It blew my mind.

My mom warned me that after six weeks I would have to give the kittens away. I dreaded this more than I dreaded the dentist. We went to the Smith’s grocery store and I sat out in front of the store with all five kittens in a cardboard box. One by one they slowly disappeared. The kittens KNEW what was happening—they whimpered as the litter dwindled in size. And I whimpered right along with them. Then a biker dude came up--he was probably 9 feet tall and 500 lbs. A Goliath man, really. He had a bandana on over his bald head, and wore a black shirt with a black vest, black pants and black boots. He had to have been the leader of some Harley Davidson club. He took one of the kittens and said to his nasty little sidekick, “This will keep the Doberman company.” And then he laughed a sinister laugh. A Doberman?! Those spawn of Satan dogs that always have spiked collars and eight inch long canine teeth?! Evil thoughts raced through my head as he walked away with one of my kitties. I wanted to run him over with his own Harley. When all the kittens had new owners I was completely traumatized and swore I would get every cat I owned thenceforth spayed or neutered.

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Pink Jumper

In first grade I liked a boy named Spencer Wanlass. One day I hit the jackpot when I found out that my older sister Laura was friends with his older sister DeAnne. So naturally when Laura invited DeAnne over I would invite Spencer over too. Well one day exactly that happened. My actions showed that there was some sign of a girl inside of me—I wanted to look pretty for him. I curled all 45 hairs on my head and put on a little pink jumper that came just above my bruised knees. It was like I was anticipating Christmas—it was THAT exciting. The doorbell rang. Laura opened the door and there was DeAnne! And no Spencer. I was completely crushed. After not seeing Spencer again after first grade until twelve years later I learned from Spencer himself that he was too scared to come over. Spencer and I ended up dating for ten months during our freshman year of college.

Feisty

I’m proud to say that when I was three years old I discovered the art of feistiness. When I was in the hospital at age four with a shattered femur, my granny came to visit my body casted self. I laid there in the hospital bed SURROUNDED with stuffed animals and other various toys. People pitied me. It was great. Anyway, when Granny came she brought another toy for me. Some sort of toy that rattled. My response was, “What am I? A baby?” You think being in a body cast in the hospital would have humbled me. Apparently not. I blame that on my age at the time.

It seems as though Granny remembers my feisty attitude the best—probably because I picked up that gem of a trait from her. She reminds me frequently that it was common for me to tell people to get a life. She also reminds me that I would tell her that she had cracks in her face. I guess I was blunt, too.

Autobiography

I'm going to write an autobiography. Zippy inspired me. This is all I have written so far:

Somehow, when I was little, I had the ability to draw in boys pretty well. Probably because I was more like a boy than anything else. I was confident, too. I had barely any hair on my head, a gap between my front teeth that my older brother Scotty liked to call “the Grand Canyon”, and to make it even WORSE, a missing tooth right next to my top right front tooth. I was born without a tooth there—it never grew in. Those things seemed to not phase me much. Because I was cool. The hair that I did have on my head was white blonde and always in a ponytail, and I had brown skin and I was athletic. I could beat all the boys in the mile run during P.E. and kick the ball the farthest out of all the girls in kickball. In fact, when teams were chosen for kickball, I was usually one of the first chosen. And I apparently was good at tetherball. One day in fourth grade, a girl named Deah came up to me and asked if I wanted to play tetherball. I didn’t really ever play tetherball, but I agreed anyway. Deah was the tetherball queen. But then I beat her, and her reaction to her defeat was, “Your name should be Audrey Bitchell.” Looking back as an adult I think I would have stood there with a straight face and blinked a couple of times. But I am sure having been raised in a home where cussing is bad (I still think that swearing makes a person sound uneducated) would have caused me to feel shocked that a fourth grader just said the “B” word. Anyway, as previously stated, the boys loved me. Who knew that a boy could score a girlfriend that was just like him? It worked out perfectly. And I somehow discovered at an early age that you can win a boy’s heart with mere food, especially candy. Most likely because my heart could be won the same way. One day in fifth grade I saw my boyfriend Jordan talking to a new girl under a tree ALONE during recess. She wore make up. I couldn’t believe it! She was practically a woman! That night I looked in the mirror and thought that I would look that good too if I wore makeup. (Who was I kidding? I could stick the neck of a toothbrush in “the Grand Canyon” and my body was frequently covered in bruises.) Well I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup so I did the next best thing to win Jordan back. The next morning before he came into class I put a note that probably stroked his ego and taped starbursts all over it. He was sold.

Rolling in the Benjamins

I need a get-rich-quick scheme ASAP. Then I can:

-go to Jerusalem

-send packages to all my peeps. I love the idea of sending people surprise packages frequently.

-buy a Dyson. I will be content with two toys in my life. One is a huge plasma screen tv with surround sound, and the other is a Dyson. Vacuuming with a Dyson is one of the funnest most pleasurable things ever.

-Buy a bunch of books that I want to read. Or at least just put them on a shelf so that people will think I am smart and have read them all.

-Though I will hate the process of buying, I will love wearing new clothes.

Changing the subject...

To my roommates Liz, Laura, Kim, Allison, and Melissa: I just want you to all know that I love you guys and can't wait for our trip to Vegas. :)

To Sarah, Aaron, Weslie, Riggie, Big Mac, Ann, Brian, Campers, Janie, Danin, Charley, Kitten, Yorla, Johnny Boy, Puppy, Yamigus, and Pops: I can't wait to see you all.