Yesterday, the phone rang but I was busy changing a diaper so I didn’t get to it right away. When I looked afterwards, I saw it was our friend Dean. Figuring he was calling for George, I checked the messages so I could write it down for him. The message said he was actually calling for me and to please call him back when I got a chance.

Dean and I can talk about a lot of stuff but he doesn’t often specifically call me so I was curious. Thinking it was maybe about one of the shows that we both watch, I called him back.

Dean: So, do you want another cat?
Sherry: Noooooo. No.
Dean: Really?
Sherry: No, no cats.
Dean: Are you sure? Because I spoke to George earlier about it and he said yes.
Sherry: What?!
Dean: Yeah, he said yes, and he said to tell you to say yes too. He said it would be good for Hayley to have a pet she can enjoy.
Sherry: Really? Um. Well. Okay, well in that case, yes. The only reason I said no was because I thought George would kill me if he came home to another damn cat.

And then Dean arrived at our door less than an hour later. I never said a word to Hayley, and her eyes nearly bugged out of her head when a furry head poked out of Dean’s jacket when she went to hug him.

Apparently a kitten of roughly 3 or 4 months was abandoned but was otherwise in good shape, and although Dean loved her, Joanne is horribly allergic to cats and there was no way they could keep her. Had we actually said no, the next stop would have been the SPCA so Dean was very happy we took her in.

And that’s how we wound up with Angel.

Hayley spent most of the day playing with her, alternating between tossing aluminum foil balls and just chasing Angel (and then being chased right back). She also repeatedly showed her where her litter box was and where the bed we made for her was, and worrying about whether she needed to eat.

It is so nice, after having an extremely anti-social cat and pets that aren’t really interactive like the hamster and the fish, to finally have a pet that Hayley can really touch and hold and play with.

Then, Angel took a little nap beside her new friend. Don’t let the cuteness fool you, only the one with the pointy ears actually slept.

Hayley was completely incapable of focusing on anything but that cat. She barely ate any lunch and we had to bribe her with a chocolate dessert to get her to eat some supper. Every breath and every thought was revolved around Angel. I think she’s in love.

And as for me, with all my grumbling about NO MORE PETS on days when I’m tired of cleaning litter boxes and hamster cages and fish bowls, I have not so much of an iron will as a soggy paper will because it takes so little to convince me that yes, another pet would be dandy.

When I was about 16 years old, I found a beautiful grey kitten in my grandmother’s yard. I snuck him into the woodshed and fed him for a full day before I finally confessed that I had him. We couldn’t keep him because our cat was really old and not likely to accept the presence of a new cat in his world. My aunt Ellie, my favorite aunt, was a bit of a crazy cat lady. She always had at least two cats, but often she’d have four or more; she lived out in the country with lots of yard space and it was easy to accumulate them. She was notorious for taking them in. I figured I’d call her and ask her to take my little friend Smokey.

She said she just couldn’t take another cat because she had four at the time. She did offer to take him down to the pet store, the closest thing a small town had to an SPCA, and they would try to sell him. When she showed up the next day to get him, I immediately burst into heart-wrenching sobs as I handed him over to her. She took one look at me, one look at the kitten, and said, “Oh for GOD’S SAKE, I’LL KEEP HIM.”

I’ve often said that from my aunt I inherited a love and talent for cooking, the ability to curse a blue streak, and a fondness for beer. Clearly I also inherited a soft heart for animals under my oh-so-phony tough exterior.