The Cats

They were found in my husband’s little brother’s newly acquired fishing boat along with 2 others of the same color variation. Little backstory on how we got these little fuzzies. I was still a low paid peon working the night shift (see 10p-6a), and it was my day, or rather night, off. I had gone to bed right after I got home and pretty much refused to get out of bed until the following day. We were supposed to be going to Josh’s parents for dinner which was all fine and dandy, I just didn’t want to get out of bed. So he walks into the bedroom after getting off the phone with his mom and nonchalantly mentions that his brother found 4 kittens and wanted to know if we wanted ONE.

My initial reaction, of course, was the squealing words “KITTIES!”.

We were over at his parents place in less than 5 minutes. The idea was to get one of the cats. His brother had already claimed two of them, both supposedly girls, leaving us with the choice of the other tabby (who was first claimed to be a boy), and the smallest black and white female. We couldn’t come to an agreement and ended up with both of them. The black and white one was deemed Nikki, as Oreo was claimed by the other one and I refused to name my cat after a food item. The tabby however, was named Tycoon after Josh’s Rogue from WoW. Mind you, we were under the assumption that Tycoon was a boy.

4 weeks later, they’re old enough to get their first shots and thus their first vet visit. Tycoon pops his little head out of the box and the vet looks at him first. The first thing the vet says “Well you look like a little girl judging by your coloring.” He lifts the kittens tail and follows up with “Yep, I was right.” I learned 2 things that day: My brother-in-law is an idiot, and two, pay more attention to kitty colorings. I failed to notice the calico type splotch on Ty’s back.

We didn’t change Tycoon’s name, obviously and much to my amusement, Josh’s brother ended up with the boy tabby. Unfortunately, he no longer has his two little ones on the account his son is still to young to understand that you don’t pick cats up by their necks. Or tails. Or feet. Ah, the joys of a toddler.

They are both full grown and complete opposites in the terms of personalities. Tycoon is about 12-13 pounds and very active. She’ll dart around the house for nearly a half hour (at 6am, mind you) as well as drag her toys around. We have a game called “Where is the elephant now?” since we seem to find it all over the place. Nikki has slowed down a lot and now weighs in at 16 pounds. The runt of the litter has exploded after I got her fixed and only tears around the house for 10 minutes just for the sake of tearing around the house. As much as those two piss me off, I wouldn’t trade them for the world.