Andrea’s Weblog

A black cat crossing your path is supposed to be unlucky, but what happens if one ends up in your car?

Here’s the story:
On Friday we were leaving Walmart and saw a couple people gathered at our mini-van. I’m thinking “oh no, somebody hit the new van.” It turns out they had noticed a meowing coming from the engine and seen a kitten pop his head out from under the van. It took me a couple minutes to asses the situation as I was standing there corralling Elizabeth and holding Elena in a sling. I opened up the hood, and sure enough there was a face staring back at me and another woman who was caught up in the drama.

It took several attempts at grabbing him by the scruff of his neck before I extricated him from the engine. Then everybody seemed to disappear, leaving me standing there holding a cat and two little girls. I remembered that I had just purchased two baskets, so I put the kitten in one and lashed the other one on top using shopping bags. This got us half way home, because the kitten soon realized he could squeeze through the basket’s handles. I grabbed him and held him. He just sat there purring in my arm as I drove, glad to be out of cramped places.

I’m not sure when he got in there–we’d made several stops on our errand run. My guess is that he lived in the woods behind our Walmart. I had parked near the wooded side of the lot and I suppose he just climbed in because he was scared. You hear of cats doing that when it’s cold, but it was 70 degrees outside!

So, while we’re trying to find a good home for this cute little guy, he’s living in an upstairs bedroom. Finley would love to play with him, and our two cats are busy ignoring the mini-meows coming from upstairs. Elizabeth might have a hard time parting with the kitten–especially now that she’s figured out how to carry him like a baby. For the cat’s sake, I hope we find him a home where he doesn’t risk being put in a diaper and pushed around the house in a stroller.