Non-nom: The Scratching Post

When David and I were still friends, I looked around at his barren—which he claimed was "Spartan"—apartment and voiced my disapproval. He needed company. I told him he should get a kitten.

After a little badgering, he agreed, and in mid March we went to pick out the new addition. We went to a nonprofit no kill shelter called The Scratching Post in Silverton. We got lost, but strangely enough, we ended up behind a car with a Scratching Post bumper sticker—and we followed it to our destination. If that's not a sign, I don't know what is.

As we walked in the door, one of the ladies told us to "watch our steps". Looking down, we saw a puddle of kitty pee in the doorway. OK.

The scratching post is a house that has been converted to a shelter. Cats are in some cages, but mostly they just run around in every room.

Fluffy cats, tabby cats, white cats, orange cats, fat cats, black cats. Cats are everywhere. It's like three cat-lovin' ladies decided to pool their funds and buy this house and fill it to cat-pacity. [A note from David: I apologize for her pun.]

We took the tour and asked if they had any kittens. They had three. They took us to the room where kitty number one awaited, a larger orange kitten. David reached down to pet it and it latched onto his hand with little sharp claws and began biting the crap out of him.

"er…..nice.." I said. "Can we see the others?"

The other ones were two black and white kittens, brothers. I took one to hold and David took the other. The one that I held immediately became fascinated with the buttons on my shirt and dichroic glass necklace, batting at it in the most insanely cute way possible that a kitten possesses. His brother sat in David's hand, staring at him almost glumly.

As much as we hate to split up families, we had only gotten kitty clearance for one cat from our landlord, so we had to choose.

We chose the rambunctious one. We wanted a kitty with personality that won't try to take your fingers off, like kitty number one.

While we were filling out the paperwork to adopt the kitten, our lively kitty fell asleep in David's arms.

Awww.

Years later, our kitty still makes us laugh. He got into the catnip last winter, and we found him rolling on the floor, high as a kite.