Good Thing I Wasn’t Hungry and Dinner Could Wait

My step mom Kim was in town for a few days, overseeing the opening of a big ass Shoppers Drug Mart. As if her days haven’t been hectic enough, we had our own little adventure last night when trying to go grab some dinner.

So, we’re heading up King Street and stopped at a red light when we hit University. Those from the area know this is one of the busiest intersections in town. Up ahead, there’s a car in the middle of the intersection about to turn onto King, and I notice something *under* the car. A closer look and I realize it’s a cat!

Somehow the poor thing avoids an accident with the car above it as it makes its turn. I point it out to Kim, and when we get a green light we slowly pull into the intersection. I hop out of the car and scoop up what turns out to be a tiny kitten. It’s a little skittish and pretty dirty, but it doesn’t appear hurt and lets me pick it up. I could have easily carried the thing in my cupped hands, it was so small.

I wasn’t paying much attention except to get the kitten back into the car, but there was some guy who had pulled onto the sidewalk along University. He asked if the cat was okay, and I said it looked like it asked if he was the owner. Nope. I was glad to see that someone else had bothered to stop, but it didn’t clear up the mystery of how a kitten had gotten into the middle of a busy intersection and traffic had continued to go on its merry way.

So now Kim and I have this little orange and white kitten looking up at us all dazed and confused. As much as I’d love having a kitten, I wasn’t exactly in a position where I could bring it home. This seemed like the kind of situation my family regularly got itself into, as my parents’ house has accommodated up to six cats in the past. With the recent passing of Boomer, and my sister about to take Mouse to her new place, there would only be three left. But this wasn’t a good time to be incorporating new animals into the place, and besides, Kim still had another day left in her hotel so we were faced with the more immediate concern of finding a place for the critter.

I got the phone number and directions to the Humane Society from Stacey, who had given up her rabbit Zeke in the fall. There was no answer, but a call to a helpful vet we found in the yellow pages (we had since stopped at a pet store, figuring someone could give us advice/options, but they were useless) told us there were drop boxes at the Society and we could leave a message saying an animal had been dropped off. It turns out the place was open once we got there, but it’s good to have that information in case there’s a next time.

It was a little adventure of its own in getting the kitten out of the car, which had scrambled away while I was on the phone and was running around and finding places to hide. Another reason why SUVs are impractical – too many spots for small animals to squeeze into. But like I said, we’ve dealt with our fair share of cats, so we quickly got it cornered and extracted from underneath the seats. There was some minimal paperwork, some clawing up my chest to perch on my shoulder, a handoff to the Humane Society staff, and that was that.