Roadside Kitteh

A Bus Stop Story

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Every morning at approximately 6:39, I drive my two heathen children to the bus stop. Our driveway is currently one mile of solid ice, so I am a nice Ma and take my babies to the pickup site for collection. It's never a bad thing to do a bit of walking to a bus stop, but honestly it's winter and I like that time before school with my offspring. We talk about things, like how other parents spy on their children with phone apps, who's dating whom, and poke fun at each other while we wait for the bus.

Yesterday we all hopped in the car and cruised down our very bumpy because it is full of frozen ice ruts driveway toward the bus stop. The neighbor kid, Athena, walks down an adjacent to our driveway road to the bus stop every day too, and as we were coming to the stop we saw her moving toward the old guy's property that borders the bus stop's general vicinity.

Now Old Dude has an marvelous assortment of what I like to call Idaho Detritus blanketing his property. I have lived near Old Dude for years and he has never bothered a soul. He also has a motley crew of squatters that he lets dwell in random ramshackle trailers throughout his five acres. That plot of land is a tapestry of what most people would call junk. I think the crinkled late model purple sedan with an old air conditioner protruding from its window lends a nice bit of je ne sais quois to the pine laden landscape.

Anyway, Old Dude also has a herd of mini daschunds, and the day before one of the beasts harassed Athena as she walked to the bus stop. She just chased the yapping sausage back to his hole and continued on. When I saw a black shape run towards Athena in the distance yesterday morning, I just assumed that it was one of the rambunctious wiener doggers. I was mistaken.

Athena stalked toward the black shape that hurtled toward her, reached down, and clasped the little bundle of what I thought was a fur covered creature to her chest. It was that twilight hour of the morning when you can't really make out things clearly, so the kids and I were a touch mystified as to what was going on.

As I drove closer I saw that Athena was holding a young kitty. My window descended and the girl blurted, "Someone dumped this kitten out, I asked Old Dude about it."

The cat she was holding was a very dark shade of black with little bits of orange calico randomly dispersed throughout its silky black coat. While Athena was giving me the story about the kitteh, the cat itself was relaying its tale of woe. She meowed and meowed in short little bursts, only to pause and rub her face all over everything she could get close too.

"She's so cold." Athena replied looking directly at me.

It was 6 degrees yesterday morning.

My daughter looked at me, so did my son. I wanted to tell them all not to waste their time doing that pleading kid eyes thing, I had already made the decision to add Kittles Von Road Kitteh to the general population.

"Give her here." I murmured.

Athena handed me the wiggling mass, who I noted was shivering profusely as she had the coat of a cat who had been raised indoors. That fact alone made me kind of irritated as I snuggled the purring and shivering little beastie. I get it, life is hard, sometimes you are in bad situations and you just can handle animals, but dumping creatures, be they human or not, especially if they are used to being cared for, is just the worst.

Kittles took up a perch on my left shoulder as I waited for the kids to hop on the bus. Now, a lot of cats don't approve of car rides, so I was a little intrigued about how my ride home was going to progress. Was I going to look like a victim of barber with uncontrollable tremors? How was this cat transport thing going to play out?

I needn't have worried. Kittles spent most of the ride perched on my shoulder like a cat parrot, purring and rubbing against the side of my head. One time she hopped onto the dashboard and batted at the falling snowflakes as they melted into the windshield, and she also inspected the gas pedal.

As we arrived home I packed her into the house to show her to my hubs. He's a sucker for animals, especially abandoned ones, so we gave ol Kittles a bunch of loves and cat food. It was then that she got to be introduced to her new home. I have five kittens around the same age of Kittles in my barn. They have a heated room, water, and all the food they can eat in the 30X60 building of cat entertaining delight.

Upon arriving at the barn, the cat crew ran up to greet me as they always do, but they immediately knew something was amiss. I took Kittles back to the barn kitchen where I keep the kitten's food and showed her where the important stuff was (heat, food, and water). She was still purring full blast, but then the hissing started. I was beyond amused as each kitten came forward and touched noses with her, like saying "Welcome to the gang street kid."

She hissed. A lot.

In fact, today she is still hissing if they get too close, but I noticed that she is hanging right with the pack. Kittles is fitting in remarkably fast, which honestly doesn't surprise me, most things tend to thrive when they are cared about. Well, maybe everything but my bank account, as now I have six cats to fix over the next couple months instead of five. Sigh.

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And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's still covered in a bit of hay from being dropped in a pile of the stuff iPhone.>/center>

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