After getting married, Mark and I wanted to adopt a kitten (or two.)
We both had avoided getting anything more than fish for years. (Mark went through three or four Beta fish, who all died, probably thanks to his trips to visit me throughout our long-distance relationship. He wouldn’t feed them for days.)
Perhaps making one of the rarely smart financial decisions of my life, I had put off pets until I was well out of college.
I assured Mark I wouldn’t want to rush into getting a cat.
“Let’s take a look at our finances first,” I suggested. “No need to rush anything. I’m in no hurry.”
As part of my good faith effort to get to know the sleepy Tallahassee community, I registered for a 10K race just weeks after moving into our townhome. Called “Trails for Tails,” you run through a local park and into a series of trails that wind through a leafy forest. The registration fee went toward a local animal shelter, conveniently located just outside the start and finish lines. I was so thrilled with how well I did in the stifling, heart-stopping heat and humidity (about 53 minutes) that I can only say what took place next must have been fueled by a particularly intense hit of a little drug called “runner’s high.”
While Mark went to pick up his 13-year-old daughter for the weekend, I strolled the maze of cat cages, poking a finger through the wires and peering at the kittens as they tumbled around. One in particular caught my eye – they were calling her Nala. The brown tabby kitten was only slight bigger than my outstretched hand. Unlike the others, she bounced up to me, clinging to my finger and eager to play.
Winston the Cat
Dammit, I thought to myself. This marriage thing blows. If Mark wasn’t a factor, I’d be sitting at home with this sweet kitten right now. I raced home to work on my sales pitch, crossing my fingers Nala would still be there when I got back.
When I heard the key in the door, I sat up on the couch straight as an ironing board and started my pitch before his toe was even inside.
I started off slow. “I saw the cutest kitten,” I said. And then, like a train gathering steam, my words picked up speed, and I was hoping to spit my words out before he could say no. “We have to go get her before anyone else does! We have to leave right now! Come on, let’s go! Right now! Please! Right now!” A more reasoned approach had given way to hysterics.
He agreed. But he chose to go into one of his manic-clean-the-entire-house modes, offering up an excuse I couldn’t argue with: that the cat would need to come home to a clean house. He started energetically Swiffering the floors.
Fine, I fumed. Just help him get this over with. I brought out the vacuum and worked the living room and office in five minutes flat.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” I said, bouncing on my toes. We stopped at PetsMart to get a litter box, cat bowls and food, wasting precious minutes arguing over the right size for cat bowls and whether to get the fancy litter box with a swinging door. (We did.)
We were so close. Only three hours had passed.
I ran into the animal shelter before Mark had even unbuckled his seat belt. I had to have that kitten. Rounding the hallway that led into the cat cages, I opened the door and peered inside Nala’s cage, third from the left.
It took me a few clock ticks to figure it out–she was gone.
“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” I wailed. Who was to blame for this? Mark – of course. “I’m going to kill him!” I shrieked.
My wailing was so loud that two volunteers came running in and asked what had happened. “Wasn’t there a cat named Nala here this morning?” I asked them. “She’s gone, isn’t she?” I said, letting my arms fall to my side.
“Yes, she was adopted this morning,” an older lady said.
“I really wanted her,” I explained. “We bonded.” I searched for words. “She was just so cute.”
They didn’t say anything, leaving the room, and I imagined thoughts like “what the hell?,” or “what a princess” or even “let’s go get the psychiatrist.”
I wandered over to another cage with two grey kittens, a brother and sister. Eh, I thought. They aren’t as cute as Nala.
Mark arrived. (Yes, all this happened while he was parking the car. One of his charms is he takes approximately five minutes longer to exit a car than I do.) I told him what happened, making sure to place full blame on him.
The door swung open and one of the beaming volunteers thrust a soft kitten into my arms. ‘This one just became available,” she said. “Oh,” I said softly. He had long grey-and-white wispy long hair and looked up at me as if to say “Who on Earth are you?” This one was mine. I could feel it. He loved me, just look at the way he was letting me cradle him like a baby, not fighting to leap out of my arms and not distracted by the smells and sounds around him. 
“Let’s get this one,” I said to Mark, pleading. “Well, wait,” he said, ever the voice of reason. “Let’s see how it acts first, it could freak out on us.” He was the plodding thinker, and I was the impulsive shopper.
We obligingly took him into a playroom and watched it bat a ball around, but I knew, this was ours. “OK,” he relented. “Are you sure? I thought you liked that other cat? Are you always going to say, I wish we had gotten Nala?”
“I’m sure, I’m sure,” I told him. Nala who? I wasn’t ready to tell Mark that I was so over her. Later, when we were filling out paperwork, I overheard the volunteers discuss Nala.
“Nala’s weird,” one of them said. “Yeah, she’s freaky,” the other agreed. Whew, I thought. We almost got the cat that the animal shelter volunteers talk crap about. I had already decided to call our kitten Winston. (I’ve always had a thing for old-fashioned and/or dorky guy names for pets like Norman, Howard, etc.)
Mark likes to remind me of this day, particularly when I’m cuddling with Winston, rubbing his face and cooing into his ear that he’s the best cat in the whole world (possibly in my baby voice.) He will ask me: “Aren’t you glad we didn’t get Nala?”
I have to admit, I am.
