Sir Robert

The race was on. Both my sister and I have been looking to buy houses (or least town-houses) so we could quit paying rent, ditch the dubious neighbours, and own a cat legally. I've owned Shmoggleberry through 4 no-pets leases, but my sister has had the misfortune of having real-estate agents that are sticklers for the rules. Real estate agents that play by the rules are usually pretty fair by definition, so she's been in the one flat for almost 7 years, while I've had to move around a lot. Anyway, I won't bore you with the "I hate lawyers, real estate agents and used-car-salesmen" rant, so I'll get on with the story.

She beat me to it. While I'm still waiting for my new house to be built, she settled on comfortable villa-style home. The people selling it were desperate to get the whole thing over with as they were leaving the country, so my sister got a bargain price with the proviso that it came "as is" - the owners at the time had more things to worry about than making it presentable for sale.

Not that it was in a bad condition - everything was in good order, except that for some reason the owners had had it wallpapered with a truly hideous wallpaper - the sort of wallpaper that was fashionable in cheap Indian restaurants in the '70's - a very busy pattern, with "velvet" highlights.

While they were waiting for the paper work to come through, my sister and her SO decided to get a cat, as they had wanted one ever since they'd been together, but couldn't because of the lease. She explained to me that it didn't matter if they were caught with the cat, because they were moving anyway. Whether they got kicked out or moved on their own accord didn't make any difference - they weren't going to need a "good tenant" reference ever again.

They went to the local no-kill shelter and were confronted by many, many adorable kittens, and two adult cats. My sister had wanted a kitten, so she could train it and watch it grow up, and do the "doting parent" thing on a cute kitt, so she went over to select one. They were all terribly cute and cuddly, but none of them really struck home. One of the adult cats was meowing up a storm in the background, as the supervisor of the place tried to keep him out of my sister's way (after all, she had made it pretty clear she wanted a *kitten*, not a cat). It meowed and struggled and carried on a treat, while my sister entirely failed to bond with any of the kittens.

She decided to try another shelter and began to leave. She had to pass the crying, whingeing cat on the way out, and so, being the good natured person she is, tried to calm him down a bit to relieve the over-worked volunteer. He meowed a different meow and jumped up on her shoulder. He licked her ear, and sent a purr directly to her eardrum. She looked at the cat, the cat looked back, and she pronounced she was taking "Sir Robert" home, and that was that.

Sir Robert, or "Bob" to his family, settled in immediately, although my sister still pines for the time she wasn't woken at 4am to play fetch for half an hour. Bob had thoroughly bonded to both of them, as they have to him; he is destined to be one very spoilt moggy.

A week ago, they were handed the keys to their new villa, which they had decided to re-decorate before they moved in because they couldn't stand they decor the way it was. My sister described it thusly: "it gives me a migraine just thinking about it". So they decided to pack up just the bare necessities and go and paint the place on their weekends off.

For the two of them, they packed just the barest of essentials: painting equipment, a blow-up mattress, doona and pillows, the kettle, the sort of coffee that comes in a tube and only needs hot water, a change of clothes, and rudimentary hygiene equipment.

*AND*: Sir Robert, his biscuit bowl, his wet food bowl, 3 cans of different flavoured cat foods in case he didn't like the other two, his kitty-treats, his 3 toy mousies, his favourite ball, the cat nip, his cat milk, his litter tray, fresh litter, litter scooper, garbage bag for litter, his official bed & blankets (for sleeping) and his favourite cardigan of my sister's (for random snoozes, not sleeping).

As I said, just the barest of bare necessities to sustain quality-of-life.

Yup, that's gonna be one heck of a spoilt kitty. Boy am I a proud CAunTy.

Copyright © Vicky Chapman
February 23, 1999