“This is Captain Crunch,” Sandra said, drawing an orange tabby out of the scrum and handing him to Jamison. “He’s a lover, but he’s pretty high-energy. Your friend said you work a lot?” she asked.
He frowned but nodded, cuddling the little cat to his chest. I could hear a high-pitched purr rumbling out of the furball. “Yeah. I work from home, so they wouldn’t bealone, but I need to be able to focus on meetings and stuff, so I can’t spend the day chasing a cat around, either, as much as I might like to.” He stroked a finger over Captain Crunch’s ears, and the kitten made a peeping noise. In response, Jamison made a high-pitched whine. Captain Crunch’s eyes popped all the way open at the sound, and he was suddenly scrambling out of Jamison’s hands and up his shoulder. Jamison’s whine turned into a yelp as little needle claws sunk into his flesh.
“Whoops!” Sandra handily reached out and snagged the kitten before he reached the top of Jamison’s head. “Like I said, he’sgot energy in him.” She gave the Captain a snuggle and then popped him back into the crate, where his mother sniffed him thoroughly. “I’m going to skip Frootie because she doesn’t really like to be held and your friend said you want someone who’ll snuggle you.” She snagged another kitten, this one white with cow-like black spots. “This is Cinnamon Toast Crunch - we call her Minnie,” she said, handing the kitten over to him. When Jamison cradled her to his chest, the cat immediately flopped over backwards into his hands and closed her eyes.
Jamison made that whining noise again. This time it didn’t end in him being climbed; it just caused Minnie to open her eyes and reach out an inquisitive paw toward his face. Obediently, he lowered his head until the kitten could boop his nose. “Oh my god,” he cooed. “She’s so…ow!”
The claws had come out, but in her defense, it appeared to be friendly fire. I reached out and carefully unhooked her claws from his skin and lowered her paw back to her chest, which I tickled with one finger. She was obviously at least eight weeks old if they were ready to adopt her out, but she seemed so tiny. One of my fingers almost spanned the width of her chest. I could feel it vibrate under my hand as she purred.
Jamison stroked a hand over the kitten’s head. “I think I’m in love.” He looked up at Sandra. “Would she cope with being…ugh, I can’t think of a better way to say this…with being ignored while I work?”
Sandra’s gaze grew slightly shifty. “You know the best way to keep a cat entertained and out of trouble?”
I saw where this was going, but Jamison, in his innocence, just said, “No, what?”
She grinned. “A second cat.”
He blinked at her, then looked at me. I shrugged. She wasn’t wrong. “Oh but I…” he began, nervously rearranging the snoozing kitten in his arms. She swatted halfheartedly at his armas it jostled her, purr stopping for a moment before her claw snagged his shirtsleeve and pulled his hand into her stomach. She wrapped both paws around his wrist and closed her eyes again.
I was melting. Maybe Curie wouldn’t mind a cat companion…
“Let me show you Pops,” Sandra said, gently prying Minnie out of Jamison’s hands and studiously ignoring his bereft expression as she did it. “Pops is named well, because he’s sort of the old man of the bunch. Low-energy, very steady, but friendly.” Minnie was placed back into the crate and a gray tabby was extracted and placed into Jamison’s hands.
The kitten sat there, blinking up at him owlishly for a moment, and then you could almost see him shrug. He nuzzled into Jamison’s elbow and settled down for a nap, apparently over the whole excitement of being handed to a stranger.
“He’s sweet,” Jamison whispered. “But…” And here his voice dropped even further. “...kinda boring.” He made an apologetic face at the kitten.
Sandra just smiled. “Like I said, a steady old man. Here, let me…” She picked him up, eliciting hardly a blink from the cat, and put him back in the crate. “And here’s Kellogg.” She snagged the mother cat and swung her up into her arms. Kellogg immediately threw her paws around Sandra’s neck and held on, leading to an awkward few moments where Sandra tried to pry her off herself without doing any harm. Finally, Kellogg was transferred to Jamison, who tickled under her chin. Kellogg snuggled her face into the crook of his neck and began purring loudly.
Honestly, Kellogg didn’t look much bigger than some of her kittens. “How old is she?” I asked, stroking a finger over the top of her head where it stuck out from Jamison’s neck.
“We don’t know for sure,” Sandra said, “because she came in as a stray. But we’re guessing she’s not much more than a year,if that. She’s still got a bit of the kitten in her. We call her the teenage mother.” She grinned. “Naughty girl didn’t have safe sex.”
Hearing this matronly woman pronounce the word “sex” with that lascivious lilt was not something I’d expected out of my afternoon. I managed not to wince…too much. Instead, I petted Kellogg again. “I’m sure she’s a good girl who was just taken advantage of,” I played along.
Jamison frowned at me. “Hey, girls can be enthusiastic participants in sex too. Don’t ignore her choices.” He juggled Kellogg’s weight a little to bring her closer to his chest, and she responded with increased purr volume. “See, she agrees.”
We were debating the sexual agency of a cat. Of course we were. I managed a serious face and nodded understandingly. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Kellogg.” I reached out to scritch her head and couldn’t resist making a little kissy noise I didn’t even know I could make before that moment. “Your choices are your own.”
“She knows what she wants.” Jamison stroked his hand down her back. “And I think she likes me.”
Sandra chuckled, gesturing to the way the man and the cat were clutching each other. “I think you just might be right. So,” she went on, reaching out to gently pry Kellogg away from Jamison, “you like Minnie and Kellogg? Do you want to meet more cats or are you set on these two?”
I noticed that she smoothly referred to them as a pair, as if Jamison had already agreed to two cats instead of one, but the hint seemed to go over his head and he just nodded. “I think I really like these guys, but let’s meet a few more just in case.”
Sandra slipped Kellogg back into the crate, latched it, and clapped her hands happily. “Great! I want you to meet Solo Cup first. He’s an absolute doll, but he’s a mature adult so he’s been passed over a few times.”
“I’m not sure anyone mature is going to fit well with me,” Jamison joked with a smirk. “I specialize in immaturity.”
I rolled my eyes; Sandra ignored the quip as she crossed the room to another stack of cages with us following her. “This is Solo,” she said, gesturing to the cage on top, which held…well, as best I could tell, it held a giant cotton ball that had suffered an unfortunate facial accident. Solo Cup was apparently one of those designer cats that had been bred to be so ugly they were cute.
He stalked up to the bars of his cage and meowed at us, reaching a paw out through the bars to bat at Sandra’s hand as she worked the latch. “Bad boy,” she cooed in a voice that was anything but censorious. “Let me get you out, and then you can meet everyone.”
Surprisingly, the cat obeyed, backing up a step until Sandra had the crate open and then practically launching himself into her arms. She caught the - not-insignificant, judging by heroof- weight of the flying cat handily and turned to pass him to Jamison, who accepted the furball warily. “He’s…poofy,” he reflected in a voice that was careful to be neutral.
Sandra just nodded. “Yeah, he’s pretty good about grooming himself, but he does need a good brushing every day or two. Luckily, he likes the Furminator.”
Jamison blinked at her. “The what-nator? Is it made of liquid metal? Does it have an Austrian accent?”
