My FORAY into the world of cats

While my chronicles of pet experiences will not necessarily be chronological, I find it fitting to start where it all began and offer some context…

Growing up in my parents’ house, we had beagles. We got Lucky, who was extremely morbidly obese, when I was 7, and after he passed, Bailey came my senior year in high school. I knew nothing of owning significant pets besides those two. Sure, I had housed hamsters, rabbits, frogs, guinea pigs, etc., but the companionship offered by a dog was something I found to be unparalleled. And I longed to have that moving forward in life as I ventured out onto my own in adulthood.

When my best friend and I moved into our first apartment post-college graduation, I was eager to get my first, and very own, pet…a pet that I could nurture, care for, love. And one that only I would be solely responsible for.

The odd-shaped apartment was in downtown Manchester, NH, on the second floor of an old Victorian home. The ancient landlord’s (who, to this day, I’m not sure if she realized where she was at any given moment or that she even was a landlord) daughter, who was quite advanced in age herself, lived in the apartment adjacent to us. Her apartment was covered in cats…she embodied the elements of the quintessential single cat lady, and she was adamant from day one: cats, cats, cats, but NO dogs.

That was ok! I could get a cat. It couldn’t be THAT different from owning a dog, right??

My best friend and roommate had grown up with cats. She was getting one herself at any moment. Certainly, she would guide me on my journey of feline ownership. So off to the Manchester Animal Shelter we went, back when you could find an adoptable litter of kittens at any New England humane society. And the voyage began.

Entering the shelter, front and center was housed a crate of kittens. They were impossibly tiny. We watched as they meowed, climbed, wrestled, and napped seemingly all at the same time. It seemed like forever, but was in reality probably only a brief instant. I had found the one I wanted. I was drawn to her. The runt.

She was a miniature, little active thing…black and white with the cutest pink dot of a nose. I knew instantly she was meant to be mine. And her name was to be Mackenzie.

We paid the fee, no questions asked, loaded her into the cardboard carrier they provided for travel, and drove her the ten minutes back to our apartment.

I was finally a cat owner. Mackenzie was mine, and mine alone. And we were about to embark on a 15 year adventure that I will cherish for a lifetime.

Once home, I opened the cardboard box and let her climb out. No acclimation period, no hesitation, she maneuvered her minute body out of the box and began running around…instantly at play.

And then, and only then, did I realize that perhaps the runt is not the smartest of creatures in reality. For as we watched in admiration and awe, we witnessed the first of the countless times in her life that Mackenzie got excited, began running full speed, and collided face-first into the wall (smashed head-on in fact) that was clearly right in front of her.

I had questions, sure. But at that moment, I was too enthralled with the cuteness that had entered my life. A teeny, fun-sized baby, whom I was destined to love in this lifetime and beyond.