My sister has recently relocated here from Texas. She has spent time cleaning and fixing up a little rental house and she was sleeping on an air mattress until last Thursday. On that day, she and I borrowed our uncles truck, a huge Ford F250 and drove about an hour away to my mother in law's house to retrieve a mattress and box springs for her. After my sister and I had a nice lunch with my mother in law we loaded up our goods onto the truck. Because my uncles truck had a tool box on the back, the mattress wouldn't lay flat so we had to prop it up a little on the box. This meant no visibility through my rear view mirror and to top it off his side view mirror on the passenger's side was already missing. This left me with my one driver's side view mirror. As we left the neighborhood and my mother in law was following behind in her car, I suddenly got nervous. I asked my sister if she thought the mattress would be ok and not fly out. She assured me that it was too heavy and I trusted that, but I did warn my mother in law behind me to watch for any movement. Not too long of being on a busy highway at lunch hour, I looked out my one and only side view mirror and there behind me, in the middle of the road was our big pink mattress. My mother in law had stopped about 3 inches behind it. PANIC! TRAFFIC! MATTRESS! As I backed up the truck my (very sophisticated and well dressed) mother in law was pulling that mattress to the side of the road all by herself with traffic rushing by. We hopped out and helped her, loaded back up the mattress and much to our surprise a good Samaritan stopped (WITH BUNGEE CORDS) and proceeded to secure our mattress to our truck. This man even put himself in harms way, standing on the side of the truck closest to the other lane and the traffic. He didn't let us pay him or anything, he just accepted our gratitude and we were on our way. It's really nice to know that there are still many kind people in the world, willing to help someone in need. We are still laughing at ourselves for this, thinking that's what we get...3 women doing a man's job.
Later that evening, after arriving safely home, my kids heard a strange noise outside around our cars. It was obvious it was coming from my husband's Cherokee, but what was it? After some careful listening, my husband says, "I know EXACTLY what it is! It's a cat!" He explained that earlier that morning he was driving through town and he saw this little black puddle in the road, but upon getting closer he noticed it was a cat that wasn't moving. He swerved around it carefully, got out of his car and went to check on it, but it wasn't there anymore. He looked to the sides of the road but he saw no cat running away. He recalls getting out of his car he heard a small "thump" but thought nothing of it. Apparently, cat had hitched a ride and rode around with my husband all day and eventually home with him that evening. We finally located the cat underneath his car. You could see the little cat by looking above his rear wheel and it was sitting on his gas tank underneath. We tried to lure the cat out with tuna, cheese and many "Here kitty, kitties" but nothing worked. Finally, my husband brought out the MAGIC GLOVE, that has been known to help abandoned animals in the past. With the glove my husband, the hero, was able to get the cat..only, it was a kitty. A tiny, solid black kitty with little green eyes. Needless to say, my girls were absolutely thrilled at this hitch-hiker kitty telling their Daddy that "We have to keep her because she obviously wanted to come home with you."
The next morning I took "kitty" to the vet to get checked and she is in great health, not a flea on her, not hurt and she weighs about 1.5 lbs. She is just about 6 weeks old. We are letting the kitty stay for a while, until she can take up residence with another family member. She sure is cute and I think all of us are quickly becoming more and more attached to her.
Our main concern and why we don't want to keep her permanently is because of J, our 2 yr old. He has given the kitty the name, "Mau Mau" (pronounced like now, but with an M instead of an N) That's his version of Meow, Meow. J is wanting to play in the kitty litter and carry her by the neck.
Pretty soon, Mau Mau herself might look into getting out and start hitch-hiking again, just to get away from him. In the meantime we are enjoying our new little friend.
I wonder what this week has in store for me!
