Adopting Poet

About two months after I turned 18, I decided that I should get a pet kitten. I had some image in my head of a disgustingly cute, white or calico bouncing fluffy fur-ball. I even planned to name it “Nermal”. Oddly, not only could I not find this visage of cuteness, I had a hard time finding any kittens up for adoption in my area. I went to the two nearest animal shelters. I looked in the paper. Nothing. One late October afternoon I was on my way back from a visit with my mom. And on a whim, I stopped by the Humane Society in my mom’s town.

There were two completely uninteresting kittens in their own cages. Until that moment I didn’t even realize that ‘interesting’ was one of my criteria. In another much larger cage, there was an entire cat family—mom, dad, and 3 kittens. All of them black and white, with huge ears, and lots of personality.

Before I could even ask, the staff shared with me how they ended up with the black and white cat family. The two adult cats had been left while the female was still pregnant with her little brood. She had her kittens there at the shelter. Both of the adult cats were Orientals. The momma cat was a longhair, and the poppa cat was a shorthair—both very pretty. The kittens, well, they all looked like big eared wet rats.

Their former owner had originally planned to sell the kittens, but he soon found out two distressing details. First, the black and white tuxedo-style markings were not considered show quality. Second, having bred a longhair with a shorthair, the kittens could not be “registered” no matter how their markings turned out. (Oriental longhaired cats weren’t officially allowed into the club until 2 years later.)

I was speechless. It sounded so callus and stupid! But according to the staff, this wasn’t that uncommon. Still, they ran into this sort of thing more frequently with dogs; and usually not entire animal families.

They opened up the family cage, and asked me which of the drenched rats I wanted to see first. I thought I wanted a girl cat, so I introduced myself to the female kitten first. She was not impressed with me. Then I noticed that one of the boy kittens was making a very eager show of wanting to be next out of the cage. I obliged.

As soon as I picked him up, he *hugged* me! Really. One hand-like paw on each shoulder and a definite little squeeze. He had the most uncanny intelligent look in his eyes. He looked at me as if to make it very clear that he planned to leave with me. That was it. I fell in love with the little black and white drenched rat. I was ready to adopt him immediately. Right then, I looked at his alert, interesting face and I knew his name: Poet.

While I was signing the adoption papers and paying the fees, one of the ladies noticed that Poet was not quite 8 weeks old. She yelled back to the other woman, “Hey, the kittens were born on September 2nd.That’s close enough to eight weeks right?” She agreed it was.

September 2nd. Poet had been born on my 18th birthday. I knew that Poet was going to quickly become my most precious companion. He sat perfectly and patiently in the passenger’s seat as I drove us home.