It was 12 years back that I got a phone call bright and early one morning from my friend at the shelter. My groggy mind barely registered the words "need a clean home", "foster for awhile til she's better", "euthanasia list" - the last words finding my heart of course. By the end of the day I had unwillingly taken in a small, noisy little charge.
She was a scrawny, little brown tabby who had been tossed from a car. She needed some meds, both for an infection, and cuts on her eye lid and chin. I wasn't really up to doing all this, but, her little life had become my responsibility. She crawled into bed with me the first night, nestled in the crook of my arm, and two-tone purred loudly into my ear. Hours later, staring bleary eyed into the darkness, I tried to go to my happy place - an island in the Pacific. I was fishing from small motor boat, with a two-toned engine. Eventually drifting off, I began to wonder what I was getting myself in for.
Little one needed a name. I stared at her. She had Cleopatra type markings around the eyes, but didn't suit the name. I tried a number of possible cutesy names, but none fit her. All she did was squeak at me. That and pass a lot of very stinky gas. Since I really didn't want the neighbour's hearing me call "Fart! Come Fart!", I settled on "Squeak". Her future owners could change it as they saw fit, after all I was just a foster parent.
A week later I had to head out of town for a few days, so Squeak was returned to the SPCA for a brief stay. I popped her in her crate, looked into her pleading, hurt eyes and my heart rip right out of my chest. Uh-oh. As I drove out of town, I knew this fostering thing wasn't going to work. Squeaky was mine.
Or more accurately, I was Squeaky's.
And so it began......
No comments:
Post a Comment