A Fat Cat Named Hotrod

I’ve told you about my puppies but I haven’t told you about my cat. She isn’t all that exciting. She is very fat, even though we feed her the expensive diet food and she doesn’t do much but sit in the middle of the floor and sleep. Since she is fourteen years old I think this is acceptable. That would make her 76 years old in human years. I think, if you have lived for 76 years, you should be allowed to do what ever you want. The thing is, she hasn’t always been boring. The way she came to be my cat is a rather interesting story. So I’ll tell you about that.

One day when I was a kid I heard a noise under an oil tank in our yard. It sounded so sad and pathetic I had to crawl under to see what poor animal was making that sound. Much to my delight, I found a tiny little kitten. I ran in to tell my mom and she told me to leave her there and wait to see if the mother cat came back to get her. I sat and waited for hours. When it finally started to get dark I crawled back under and brought her into the house. Mom fixed some mush for her to eat. I’m not sure what the mush was made out of but the kitten seemed to like it.

“She must be older than she looks” my mom said, “She isn’t having any problems eating”

We fed her mush for a few days then she started eating regular cat food. Many months went by but she never got very big. She was maybe 2/3 the size of a regular cat. I don’t know if she was a runt or just genetically a very small cat. We loved her anyway and named her Baby. She lived with us for a few years until one day she disappeared.

A few weeks later I heard a noise under the back porch. There she was with three kittens. She looked very proud of herself. I was so excited. My parents, not so much. Two of the kittens didn’t make it. A hawk snatched one and a car hit the other. The surviving kitten was completely white with a small black smudge going down the middle of his head. We named him Mohawk.

Mohawk gave birth to six kittens a few years later. I was grown and had my own home at this time. I came home and listened to my parents complaining about all the cats while they cooed over them and made sure Mohawk was getting enough to eat. The kittens grew up and we gave some of them away. One of the remaining kittens had a very loud purr. I was considering naming her Hotrod. One day she went out of her way to earn the title.

I was just getting out of bed one morning when I heard my dad’s car barreling down the gravel driveway. He busted through the back door, kitten in hand, and tossed her, bowling ball style, onto the floor.

“This damn cat crawled into the engine compartment of my car and rode all the way to Hardees. When I stopped to get breakfast she jumped out and ran into the restaurant. Then she jumped up on the counter like she was going to order a biscuit or something! I chased her all around the place.”

He shouted. “I’m already late for work. Find a home for her or I’m getting rid of her!”

“I think she’s definitely a hotrod” I told my mom. We giggled at the though of dad running around Hardees trying to catch her.

I took her with me to my new house in Fredericksburg and she’s been here ever since. As far as I know, she no longer desires a biscuit from Hardees, but she still has a very loud purr and we still call her Hotrod. She earned the title, even though looking at her now you’d never guess it.