“We’re getting a cat. Like tomorrow. This is important.” These words, especially from the lips of my husband, were confusing to say the least. He had just spent several minutes in deep conversation with our friend Mary, who volunteers her free time at the animal shelter. She had spent the last four months trying to sell us (mainly the hubs) on this cat who is in her words “the absolute sweetest!”
Still, my husband is a hard sell, one of the main reasons being that he is allergic to pretty much everything from seasonal ragweed to any house pet living outside of the water.
Myself, I’d had outdoor cats at different times when I was a kid, with the common ending always being that they “ran away”. Youthful naive me did not connect the dots to the fresh holes in the back yard and the sudden disappearance of the food dishes. That is part of being the youngest in the family; it is a blessing and a curse to be sheltered from life’s realities.
On this day, however, after the conversation with Mary, something clicked, and my husband was adamant. So, the next day, Millie, the cat, became a part of our family. The kids love her, but they did take a while to adjust. Until then, their only pet experiences had been a year with a goldfish named Harvey and two short months with the cutest little hamster named Mae. I wish I could say that Mae’s short stay had to do with the hubs’s allergies and that she lived out the rest of her long life elsewhere. But sadly, that wasn’t the case. I’ve heard that everyone has a sad hamster story… this one will be for another day.
It took me a day or two after we became settled in with Millie for me to think to ask the husband why he had the sudden change of heart in wanting a pet. His answer was that our friend Mary, the animal loving volunteer, told him that after having been at the shelter for almost a year and being the featured pet several times, Millie was about to be sent to a different shelter, and her time there had no guarantee for a positive outcome. To this day, my husband is still Millie’s favorite human. It’s like she knows that her future was completely changed by a five minute conversation with an animal loving friend. 🩷 🐈
Just Call Me THAT Mom 