1.30.2011 ~ meet Diesel

Here's a riddle for you.

Jonathan hates cats. 

Yet there is a cat living in our house.

And Jonathan loves him.

"It's a Christmas miracle!"

no... really.

Meet Diesel, the Dairy Queen Christmas Cat:

It was late December and I was in Dallas to pick up supplies at the Old Mill Feed Store 

for our church's live nativity, and as I was driving through town I had a strong feeling to go through the drive through at the Dairy Queen.

The feeling did not come from my stomach.

I'm the kind of girl who can usually go for some ice cream, but I didn't feel like eating a darn thing at Dairy Queen that day. 

But the feeling commanded me:

"Go Through The Drive-Through!"

And so I did.

I half-heartedly ordered a small vanilla cone, and before I had a chance to feel guilty, there he was: a big, pretty tuxedo tom cat. 

I said, "kitty kitty?" fully expecting him to give me the customary cat response of aloofness.

Instead, he walked right up to my car and said quite clearly:

"Meow, meow?"

and melted my heart into a big sticky puddle right on the spot.

I asked the girls at the window what the deal was with the cat, and they told me that he was for sure homeless, that Olivia wanted to take him home but her dad wouldn't let her have a cat, and that one of the girls who worked there lived across the street and he would hang out on her porch or at the Dairy Queen. That they called him Sylvester.

And that they fed him fish sticks. 

Uh huh. I believe it. The guy weighed 12 pounds when I took him to the vet, which was the first thing I did after Olivia wiped away a tear and handed me the bag of Nine Lives that they kept at the Dairy Queen for him. He let me scoop him up, and I gently placed him on the front passenger seat where he meowed very loudly but didn't freak out on our 3 minute drive to the vet.

I thought about how much Jonathan hates cats.

I thought about how allergic his mom is to cats.
I thought about how his parents never visit.

I thought about how much the kids would love this cat.

I thought about this cat living on the mean, cold streets of Dallas in December.

I thought about getting this cat's nuts chopped off and then finding him a good home.

I thought about giving him our home.

And I said a little prayer.

I brought him home two days later, the morning of the second day of the live nativity, when I was already running around like a chicken with its head cut off. My friends at the vet clinic had run tests, cut off his boy parts, pulled a few rotten teeth, de-bugged him, cleaned him up, and vaccinated him. Poor little dude was pretty out of it when we got home, but the first thing he did when we took him out of his borrowed crate was to crawl from one lap to the next as we sat knee to knee in a circle on the laundry room floor. He purred like his life depended on it, and crawled to the next lap and purred some more. 

They say rescued animals know they've been rescued. I'm not sure if it was that or the kitty-vicodin, but the kids were out of their minds with delirious happiness, and he seemed pretty happy, too.

I stopped Jonathan before he could even start. I said the kitty could be a barn cat. I said my friend Sarah was interested in adopting him. I said Jen told me he could live at the barn where we board our horses. I said he was only staying until he was recuperated. Jonathan did the "I hate all cats" harrumph, and otherwise kept his silence. Except to gently remind me that the monstrous vet bill would reduce how much we'd be able to give away to our two favorite local charities. I inwardly cringed and acknowledged that he was right, but... it was what it was. I'd said yes to a homeless kitty, and that was that.

I did not mention the strong possibility that said kitty most likely had sky-high triglycerides from eating Dairy Queen for only God knew how long, and would in all likelihood need kitty Lipitor for his outrageous cholesterol levels.

It's all about the timing, you know?

The week passed quietly with kitty staying, quite contentedly, in the laundry room just eating and sleeping and recovering. And purring loudly whenever anyone would pet him. And the kids eating him up as much as I would let them before admonishing them to let him rest. 

And one time I froze as I walked past the laundry room and caught Jonathan petting him.

"I don't see what cat people see in cats, anyway" he said, and continued petting the cat, who purred sweetly. My eyebrows went up, but I nodded mutely and tiptoed away. 

And then on Christmas morning, after the presents were all opened, Jonathan announced that there was one more gift. It was in the laundry room, he said, because it was 
too hard to wrap.

There was shoving and running and squealing.

The door to the laundry room swung open, and we saw dirty laundry, and a blinking kitty.

Jaws dropped, and heads turned to look at Daddy.

Daddy smiled.

There was screaming.

And there was much rejoicing in the land.

The End.