I first came online on August 1, 1996. The reason? We had trapped a feral cat by tricking him into our garage. And he ran into the rafters. And decided he would live there.
I climbed a ladder to feed him. I climbed a ladder to clean the litter box. Eventually, he made his way down and into the house. But he lived up there for months. I was younger then.
He was cat number nineteen. We had nineteen cats when I came online. Today, we have seventeen. The youngest is Pancho, close to ten years old now. The oldest are Opie and Sammy, born in 2001. So, sixteen?
This is the least amount of cats we've had since 1996. The most we had at the same time was thirty-eight. We knew this would happen.
At the vet's yesterday morning, there were two of the cutest kittens. Each missing an eye. Some rat bastard popped the eyes out. Animal control brought them in. Last night, I had fleeting thoughts of adopting them. But I don't want to have our cats outlive us. Yes, I understand we could be killed in a car accident or any number of things. But how good will I be at cleaning litter boxes or medicating when I'm eighty? So, kittens are out of the question. Adopt seniors? Nope. We have seniors already. The only way we'd take in more cats is if the friends we've already told we would help out, need our help. And there aren't very many young cats in that group.
Brian said it doesn't feel like we have that many cats. And it doesn't (until we're in bed and Sammy, Opie and Ross are between us and Rory and Mario are on the other side of me).
One day, we won't have any cats. I'm not looking forward to it. Like Brian said, when that day comes, we'll be able to do stuff. Go places. Not that we will, but we can if we want.
I wonder what that would be like.
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