Friday 9 January 2015

The World's Most Boring Cat

I associate with The World's Most Boring Cat. If it wasn't for the fact that I have to open the door for her, I'd hardly notice she's there.

"Must you take my picture?"
"I must."
She's a quiet little thing, keeps to her own. But sometimes, she will come up to you for scritches. However, it must be at the right time, and in the right place.

The World's Most Boring Cat is officially named Lucky Kitty, as in, it's sheer soft-hearted luck she got this far.

Her story is thus:

One day a young mother found a little black scrap of a kitten mewing pitiably on her front porch one cold winter's day. She brought her in and fed her. She inquired around to see if anyone had lost a kitten in the neighborhood. Nobody claimed her.

This young mother was not really a cat person, so she inquired to the vet to see if she'd take this lost kitten. The vet had one look at the kitten's black pelt. "I'm sorry," she said. "Nobody wants black kittens. They consider them bad luck."  She further explained that if she did take the black kitten, most likely, she'd only have to put it down.

The young mother couldn't stand the thought of that, so she sought a second opinion, then a third. Even asked at the Cat Haven, but got the same answer: nobody wants black cats.

So the squishy-hearted squeamish young mother kept the kitten and fed her, and raised her, and fixed her, and let her out whenever she needed to go out, but didn't realise she needed to love her. She grumbled as she vacuumed black cat hair off her pristine white floor. Her husband would tease the cat by jumping out at it whenever it entered the room.

World's Most Boring Cat can't be bothered.
One day the young mother came to her senses. "What are we doing with this cat? We are not cat people." So she advertised in a local rag. One cat, free to a good home.

This was several months after we had lost our beloved Basil, a gorgeous domestic long hair, who had been previously abused by his original owners. We rescued him and gave him a loving long life. We presume he died of old age, for one morning, he did not come home. His soft little body was never found.

After a suitable mourning period, we looked for another cat. There were two ads in the rag for cats that day--one, an orange kitten, and this black cat.

It was simply a case of the young mother returned our phone call first. So I set out with a cat cage and a pocket of catmint.

"You interested in my Super Sekrit Christmas Scarf-making?"
"No."
Lucky Kitty was a bit skittish. She had no interest in the catmint. The household little boy accidentally let her out when we were trying to catch her for the cage. Eventually, we got our hands on her, and I was able to bring her home.

Lucky wasn't sure what to make of her new home. It was strange. We kept her inside for an entire week to acclimatize her. Eventually, this worked, once she learned that we meant her no harm, and there was always food to be had.

A couple of days after we had her, we lost her, somewhere in the theatre. So the young daughters wouldn't accidentally let her escape as they went to school, we'd shut her in the theatre. Once the girls were safely at school, I opened the theatre door to let her out.

No cat. She was gone!

How on earth do you lose a cat in a 4x6 room? I scoured that entire room, looking under the couches, behind the TV, up in the windows, everywhere.

No cat.

In frustration, I called the husband, who repeated my troubleshooting. Still no cat.

I left the door open and spent a panicked morning wondering what had happened to the cat.

Most of my pictures of The World's Most Boring Cat
look like this. She has little tolerance for cameras.
Several hours later, she comes wandering out, not a whisker out of place.

"Where have you been?"

When the husband came home, he re-scouted the theatre. Turns out, she had managed to get into the subwoofer and had hidden there all day.

It took quite some time for Lucky to warm up to us as humans. She still maintains her aloof manner, and will only cuddle you in a place of her choosing and time of her choosing--namely, in the kitchen window on a sunny day, and late at night when I'm in bed, trying to work on the laptop.

Otherwise, she is The Shadow. She is LBC (Little Black Cat). She's The World's Most Boring Cat, who does not like her picture taken.

But occasionally, she will let you know she loves you.

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