The Final Countdown…to Kitty Camp

I am so excited. At 5:00 Wednesday evening, I will officially be on vacation! I can’t wait to go out of town for my sister’s wedding in Washington, D.C. This will be my husband’s first time to go to Washington, and it’s going to be awesome. I managed to schedule a guided tour of the Capitol with our congressman’s office and we’re going to have a lot of time to sight-see when we aren’t needed for the wedding.

One thing I’m dreading, though, is taking our cat to the vet to board him. I’m a worrier by nature, and because I know him, I’m very anxious to leave him there for a few days.

Now, Hermes isn’t your normal cat. At least, I’ve never considered him normal, then again he’s my first cat. He hasn’t really been around other cats since we rescued him in February 2014, and I fear it may have really stunted his social behaviors.

He loves humans. LOVES humans. He loves to come curl up in your lap or stand on your chest and stomp on you until you feed him. When you’re sick, he knows and he gets extra cuddly to help make you feel better. He’s a good boy.

But when you bring another cat, or any other animal, into the picture, and suddenly a demon lives in our home.

At the last apartment complex we lived in, there was a community of feral cats that wandered around to help with the rodent population. We lived near a lake, so they earned their keep. There was one particular cat in the colony that was a giant orange cat we lovingly called Garfield. Hermes did not like Garfield.

One night, a few months before we were married, I wake up to some shrieking and loud thuds coming from Will’s room. I didn’t get out of bed because I wasn’t too sure what the problem was, and if someone had broken in, I didn’t want to run into the bad guy.

Will walked into my room, holding the cat as far away from him as he could. The cat was still screaming, hissing, and spitting, swatting with his claws out as much as he could. Will put the cat down on my bed, still hissing and puffed up.

“Garfield was out there,” he simply told me, turned around, and went back to bed, leaving me with a demon to tame.

So please, keep our little guy in your thoughts and send him some good juju. We’re either going to get our sweet boy back, or a hissing, spitting demon who will kill us in our sleep. Let’s hope for the former, yeah?