I've just relayed this story to someone and I thought I could cheat by using it as todays literery gem:
Rochester's tale of woe.
My mum works in a school for disabled and learning difficulties kids. One day, one of the helpers was taking the lunchboxes out of the kids bags when she was a little surprised to find a tiny, tiny kitten at the bottom of the bag.
When questioned, the child who owned the bag said that he had decided to bring the kitten in to the show the class, but had forgotten about it. The poor sod had been shut in this bag all morning. The kitten was clearly underfed (you could count his ribs just by looking), filthy and only about 4 weeks old.
So my mum tries to get hold of the kid's parents, who aren't answering the phone. next she decides to question the kid's big sister, who also attends the school for 'special' kids. This conversation established the following facts:
1. The kitten's mother had a litter of 7 kittens;
2. Only 4 of the kittens were still alive;
3. The kitten's mother was now dead;
4. At least one of the cats, possibly the aforementioned mother, had been thrown down the stairs in a fit of pique by the child's father and was killed outright.
(You may be forming a mental image of the family here - it's probably quite accurate).
The decision was taken at this point that under no circumstances was the kitten going to be returned to it's owners. Not a chance. Not on your Nellie. Nada.
So I got a call at work from Mum, who knew that we had just taken delivery of another kitten, Elliot. She was wondering if I wanted a mate for Ellie. I ummmed and ahhhhed. She told me the story. It was either me or the RSPCA. I couldn't say no. I mean... how could you?
As it happened, we were taking Ellie for a check-up at the vets that evening as we had only had him for about 3 days, so I told Mum I'd pop round her house, pick up the kitten and whisk him off to the vet.
Upon arriving at Mum's I was confronted by the image of this tiny kitten, which I could have fit into the palm of my hand and pretty much closed my hand around it, nose to nose with mum's dog. I should clarify that the dog was in a corner. Whimpering. Useless mutt.
So off goes that kitten to the Vet in a cardboard box (you know the ones that photocopier paper comes in). A name was required a short notice. Having just watched Jane Eyre (the one with Ciaran Hinds), 'Rochester' seemed a no-brainer. The vet was furious. Not because of the name, but because he just couldn't believe that anyone could let a 4 week old, undernourished kitten get taken to school in a rucksack. He demanded names and addresses, which obviously could not be provided.
Anyway. We got Rochester home, and because of his age, had to feed him warmed baby food. But that's not the end of it.
Not only was he filthy, but he was absolutely crawling with fleas. So in our infinite wisdom, we decided to give him a bath and use some anti-flea shampoo on him. To our utter, utter horror, as soon as we got him wet, the wtarer coming off him was red. Like he was bleeding. A call to the vets later and we discovered (to our minor embarrassment) that the red was actually flea-poo. So that was fine.
A couple of days later though, Rochester became poorly. he was all waek and pathetic, so we took him back into the vets, where it was established that his flea infestation had been so bad that the poor cat was actually anaemic to the point of being nearly dead.
The vet kept him in for the best part of a week, during which time he almost died twice. Fortunately, our Roach is a fighter and survived the ordeal. More baby food for another week or so, then he was onto proper cat food. 7 years later, he is an extremely large black alley cat type.
Question is... was it worth it? Rochester's vet bills cost a (relative) fortune back then... Ellie was a pedigree and cost about £80 from the breeder, but the Roach cost us about £150 in vets bills in his first 2 weeks.
After that episode, though he was fine - he's never had a day of sickness since. Ellie on the other hand proved to be a pain in the arse. He was allergic to cat food. The only food he could eat without getting the squits was the dried IAMS stuff.
Which leads me on to a lovely poo related Elliot story...
Ellie Vs The Poo
My first house had a porch with an inner door which opened into the lounge (I use the word 'lounge' advisedly as it was only about the size of a postage stamp). Ellie had developed a habit early in his life of urinating and defecating on the floor right next to this door. he also had an obsessive post-toilet scraping habit, which he retained to the day he died. He scraped the litter tray, the wall next to the litter tray and anything in a 5 metre radius.
Anyway. One day he had a bit of an upset tummy. So he decided that, rather than force Rochester to share a litter tray with a foul, steaming, liquid pool of poo he would deposit it in front of this door. Then he would, very considerately, cover it up, by scraping at the carpet until it came up and folded back over the poo.
This had the convenient effect of acting as a door stop to the lounge door. On returning home form work, I could get into the porch... but not the lounge. The door would not open more than a couple of inches.
So there's me, in my lovely, smart suit on my hands and knees in the porch, forcing my arm though a 2 inch crack in the doorway to unfold this bit of carpet, totally unsuspecting of the sloppy brown horror that awaited me. I managed to straighten the carpet, getting toxic goo on my hand in the process.
Once the carpet had been straightened the terrible realisation dawned upon me that in order to open the door, I would need to scrape the bottom of the door through the poo, thereby spreading it evenly in a neat arc all over the lounge carpet...
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