I live in Midtown Mobile, Alabama in a 1600sf house with 2 dogs and 3 cats. This is a story about the newest addition to our little zoo. His name is Tiny Dancer and he is a delight!
Tiny Dancer came to us when our daughter’s roommates in her college apartment kicked him out and the call to Mom and Dad soon followed:
“Uh, hi Mom, how are you tonight?
“I am fine, honey, but you are using that needy voice so what’s up?
“Uh, well, my roommates decided that I can’t keep Tiny Dancer in the apartment any more. He is getting too wild and he gets bored and I can’t keep up with the cat box and ….”
“Ok, ok, slow down. I assume this means we will soon have a third cat.”
“Yes.”
“ I will have to take a moment to say, in a quiet, controlled voice, WE TOLD YOU SO MONTHS AGO!”
“I know, I know, I am so sorry, but I will come by each week and clean the cat box, keep the food stocked and make sure he is ok.”
Well, it has been a while since our daughter has come by and Tiny Dancer could care less. You see, he has just about taken over the house and relies on his extreme “cuteness” to get by with anything.
This story started last summer when both our daughters offered to foster two kittens from a rescue. They were home for the summer from college and the plan was to take these two tiny creatures, socialize them, love them for the summer and then they would go to good homes.
Well, both girls wanted to keep the kittens at the end of the summer but one lives in the dorms and the other in a senior apartment. The dorm situation was not going to work out so Luna went to a good home. Our daughter was upset but understood that it was not fair to the cat to keep it cooped up in a dorm room, not to mention that students were not allowed to keep any animals in the dorms unless they were a service animal.
But the senior apartment was another story and after assuring us over and over that she would be responsible and take good care of Tiny Dancer, we reluctantly agreed to let her keep the kitten.
Tiny is our first male cat as we prefer females, mostly because they don’t spray or stray. But Tiny is a HOOT! He will jump right in your lap, push your book or iPad out of the way and want his head rubbed. Talk about Pushy! Oh, well, what’s not to love.
So Tiny Dancer runs the house as our old cats can’t stand him. And he wants to be around them all the time. We keep telling him “They don’t Play!!” But he never listens and just annoys the hell out of Abby and Georgia. Abby is all black, 12 years old and set in her ways. No room for kittens. Georgia is a gray and white, 9 years old and will scare the crap out of you when she turns on Tiny and hisses and growls and runs for the door to go outside where the world is devoid of kittens from Hell. Tiny does not care, she just keeps on keeping on and let the other cats deal with it.
So 3 cats is just too many in this small house, even though we love Tiny. When our daughter gets her own place in the fall she will take him and we are afraid he will be lonely by himself. But she is a good cat person so he will be in good hands.
Ahhh, in the near future our family will be back to normal with 2 dogs and two cats. I was happy to anticipate this blissful future for about a week when the text arrived on my wife’s phone and rocked our world again.
It seems that her good friend spied a mother cat under a neighbors shed and upon further investigation discovered 7 tiny kittens just a few weeks old. Soon the mother cat just gave up and left, abandoning these little guys to all the bad things that could happen to helpless kittens. Well, our friend agonized over what to do when she looked out her kitchen window and saw a hawk circling the yard where the kittens were playing. That scared her enough that she went into the neighbor’s yard with a large box and brought all 7 kittens into her garage.
So far she has found a home for one and that is where we come into the picture. One of the kittens is an adorable Calico female (now called Callie) and she is now at our other daughter’s dorm room having the time of her life, playing and running and eating and loving all the attention. As soon as the semester ends in May the girls will move back home and guess what our house will look like this summer. Yes, 2 dogs and 4 cats.
Wish us luck!!
About the Creator
Trent Fox
I am 70, retired, and going back to my early days of writing. I look forward to publishing more stories on Vocal and sharing my life lessons with the world.
BTW, did you really think I would use a current photo of myself in this profile.
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