A Tale of Two Kitties

Ya, I know, I know - lame title riff.  What do you expect though?  I was up late reading Dickens.

Anyway, just want to formerly announce to all that Tiffany and I adopted a pair of cute kittens - my Christmas present to Her.

Tiffany opened a bunch of presents that were cat stuff, then the last present was a stuffed kitten with the words: "Let's go get a real kitty :)"  She was kind of shocked at first.  She just sat there staring at me.  Then I asked if she was cool with it, she asked back "Are you cool with it?  I'm not sure this is what we should be doing."  I assured her that I thought about it quite a bit and I felt it was time to get one.  Since we moved into a new place that was large enough it's an ideal situation for a pet.

Last night we went to the Bubank Animal Shelter to check out potential adoption.  They were almost closed by the time we got there (Tiffany had to work until 5pm and they close at 6pm).  We went to the back (through the smelly dog corridor) to the cat paddock.

Tiffany instantly went nuts.  She is a huge cat lover - she grew up with cats in her house her whole life.  She went to every single kennel and peered in at the cats.  She played with them through the glass.  It was really fun to watch.

Eventually a caretaker came by and we asked to look at a small orange tabby kitten.  The caretaker opened it up and gave the kitten to Tiffany.  There happened to be another kitten in there - the orange tabby's sister.  It was grey and white with splotches of orange.  I automatically latched to that one.  The caretaker took out the second one and Tiffany and I held and played around with both.  The grey instantly started purring for us.  The orange one licked my hand and played around in our arms.  Since they were closing up, we put the kittens back and told them we would decide overnight.  The animal control guy said we could adopt if we wanted to, but we thought it necessary to sleep on it.  The minute they put them back, both kittens started cuddling with each other.

As we got in the car I turned to Tiffany and said: "I feel that we need to get both of those kittens."  Tiffany was kind of shocked I said that, but she felt the same exact way.  Maybe we're just compensating for lack of children in our life.  But that's the way we felt (deal with it).

CUT TO: Next day.  I had planned to go pick them up first thing when the shelter opened at 10am.  First I had to run some errands so I made it around 10:15am.  I went straight to the animal control guy from last night and said "I'm here to adopt a cat... two actually."  He had me head back to the cat paddock and bring the papers to the front for processing.  Here's where it gets interesting...

As I made it into the cat paddock, two women were browsing the cats.  One was about forty-ish in age and the other looked to be her mother of around seventy.  Both women were looking at a different kennel at some black kittens so I thought nothing of it.  I walked right in, grabbed the tabby kitten's papers and walked straight out.

With papers in hand, I proceeded to go through the paperwork with the animal control guy.  A group of about five people gathered in line behind me to adopt their own pets.  Suddenly, from out of nowhere, the woman and her mom tapped me on the shoulder.  With a huff on her lips the woman grunted "are you adopting those kittens?  Both of them?"  I replied with a cheery "yes!"  And with all the disdain in the world she asked "have you even seen them?" (note: It's law that you must hold the pet before adopting) I said "ya, we saw them last night."

At that point the mother pulled the woman along and said "let's go, come on!"  And they left in a tussy.

The others around started to smirk and giggle.  One woman asked me which ones I was getting, she had adopted another one of that litter.  I mentioned casually to the group "I guess I just ruined their day..."  They chuckled.  The woman in line said to not worry and they shouldn't be such babies about it.  I still felt a bit guilty, but not as much as the thought of not bringing both kittens home.

So that's it, that's the story of how I ruined those two women's day.  Or the story of how we have our new pets.  We don't have any names yet, any suggestions are welcomed (the geekier the name references, the bigger the kudos will be).