When my husband and I first discussed Nanny moving in with us, he was concerned about her three cats triggering his allergies. Actually, she had five cats, but hey, who’s counting? Apparently he was, and he was more than a little annoyed when we were packing up the U-Haul to move her to Georgia, and there they were, waiting to be loaded into the car – FIVE cat kennels. I assured him that cats were notoriously poor travelers and at least one, possibly two, was sure to run off within a week of arriving at their new home.

Well, the cats did not run off. They loved it in Georgia. They loved our big wooded lot. They loved our creek. They loved the squirrels and chipmunks and birds, whose little mangled bodies we find at the back door. They loved sharpening their claws on the deck. They loved going outside. And back inside. And outside. And back inside. All. Day. Long.

For the first six months, I heard about it every day. Every single day.

“You said there were three cats, and there are five. FIVE!”

“Well, yes, I said there were three cats, and there are definitely three cats. So it’s not really a lie. Besides, there’s not a big difference between three and five when it comes to cats. Don’t you agree, honey?”

“You said one of them would run off, and not one has. NOT ONE!”

“Personally, I think that is a testament to the excellent home we have provided for them. Don’t you agree, honey?”

He never did agree, but eventually I heard about it every few days, and then once a week, and then once every couple of weeks. We had all five cats up until a year ago. Now we are down to two. Which my husband is very, very happy about. Over the last five years, he has extracted many promises from me, including one that stipulates that I will not get any more cats (although I did add the caveat that Nanny must always have at least one, and probably two). And now, you are up to date, which leads me to our story.

Three nights ago, The Girls were at the movies. It was a nice quiet evening at home, and Dave and I were playing Words With Friends on our respective laptops in the loft, which is directly over Nanny’s room. Then I heard it. Faint, tiny, indistinct, but I heard it.

Mew.

I knew immediately. I knew it as surely as I knew that I had just played the word “QUIVERERS” (yes people, it is a word, and if you play it on a triple word square it is worth a LOT of points). I knew that my grandmother was harboring a kitten in her bedroom.

Luckily, my husband is hard of hearing, and is also, despite having lived with so many of them for so many years, not really very familiar with cats. But then I heard…

MEW!

And then a moment later…

MEW!! MEW!! M-E-E-E-W-W-W!!!

I started to sweat. He’s hard of hearing, not stone-cold deaf. I snuck downstairs and knocked on her door. No answer. I knocked louder. No answer. I pounded. Still no answer. Then I tried the doorknob. Locked. My husband looked over the loft railing.

“Why are you knocking on your grandmother’s door at 11:00 at night? Don’t you think she’s sleeping?”

“Um…I haven’t seen her all day, I just wanted to say good night. I thought I heard her get up.”

As luck would have it, right about then he noticed my triple word play and became so discouraged that he went to bed. I sat and pondered. Where would she have found a kitten? Then it struck me. It had happened again, as  it had over and over in her cat-loving life. She recently lost a cat, and some well-meaning, good-intentioned person had shown up with a replacement. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and when I found out who it was they were going to get a kick in that general direction right in their good-intentioned ass. Shortly after, The Girls came home.

“So, Girls, have you seen your great-grandmother today?”

“Yes, we have. Why do you ask?” The answer was a little too bright, a little cheery.

“Did you notice anything…different about her?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, did she have any visitors? Anyone drop by with a present?”

“Not that we know of.”

“Did she have any new accessories? Say, of the four-legged furry variety?”

“Um…”

“Oh MY GOD! You know what’s going on! You know about the kitten! There IS a kitten! Spill it, right now! Where did it come from?”

“We don’t EXACTLY know where it came from…”

“Whose is it!”

“We don’t EXACTLY know whose it is…”

“Did she find it outside?”

“It wasn’t EXACTLY outside…”

After a half hour of badgering I dragged it out of them. THEY had brought the kitten home. They had gone to a friend of a friend’s house to see their new kittens, and had brought one home to replace the one Nanny had just lost. A vague memory of my daughter’s recent Facebook post came back to haunt me…”Going to see the kittens!” I should have known.

“Listen Girls, that thing’s down there screeching and our lives aren’t going to be worth two cents if Uncle Daddy finds out. You better figure something out. And FYI, she’s barricaded herself in her room and won’t answer the door. So I don’t know how you’re going to solve this, but you better solve it, and quick.” (He’s Uncle Daddy because I got tired of saying, “Your uncle…your dad…” whenever I mentioned him to The Girls.)

Back in my bedroom, I stew. Are they actually trying to ruin my life, or do they just like torturing me to see what I’ll do, the way a boy pokes a bug with a stick? When I calm down, I decide that there was probably no malice in it, that they probably saw the kitten and thought, “It’s cute! And fuzzy! We’ll take it home! And it will be cute and fuzzy at home! And everyone will eventually love it! Because it’s cute! And fuzzy!”

Five minutes later, I get a text. “Do you want to see him?” Great. It’s a him. I hate boy cats.

Against my better judgement, I visit the closet. There is a laundry basket turned on its side with a towel in it for a bed, a tiny cardboard box with litter in it, and food and water. The litter could have come from only one place – Nanny. She was in deeper than I had first realized.

“How did you get the kitten out of her room?”

“We called her on the phone and she unlocked the door. He’ll be quiet in the closet, he always is.”

“You called her on the phone at one o’clock in the…Wait, he ALWAYS is? How long has this thing been here?

Apparently, the kitten had been in the house for two days. It spent the first night in their closet, and was attempting to spend the second night with Nanny until she got up to use the bathroom and disturbed it, which was the ruckus I had heard.

Then I saw him, emerging from behind the shirt he had been climbing up. Tiny, tiny little thing, with five black spots in the shape of a daisy on his back and one covering his eye, and a little black tail. And…he was cute! And…fuzzy! And he was jumping around and rolling somersaults and pouncing on things, and doing it all cute and fuzzily! Damn it!

There was no help for it, we couldn’t keep it. I played my bluff, which was to threaten to take it to the animal shelter (Girls, if you’re reading this, I have never taken an animal to the shelter and never will. But if you bring home any more pets, I’m keeping the pet, and you’re going to the shelter.) The Girls found Daisy a new home by the next night (thank you Samantha and Stacy, we are forever in your debt!). Once I knew he was leaving, I was free to succumb to the cute-and-fuzziness, and we got to have a kitten for a day. Nanny was a little sorry to see him go, but I think she rather likes being down to two. Which is not very much like five, or so I’ve heard.