Mom told me a true bedtime story. She was speaking about how fortunate we kitties are who are in a home and are loved by our human parents. And sometimes, by their human children we live with as well.
Robin was such a girl in our household. Her three human brothers picked her out of a litter across the street when she was 6 weeks old. They named her Robin. She was a Tortie, but mom here was ignorant about differing cat's furs and their meaning. Ginger cats were called Peanut Butter cats by my human brothers, and Mom for example, and just Striped Cats for the tabbies and so on. They had never seen a Tortie nor had Mom. And Robin was, we thought, mostly all black. But she had an orange chin and an orange paw. She had, as she got a few weeks older, faint orange mottling in her furs. Signaling some Tortie but we didn't know
She was completely used to being picked up, loved, taken to bed, to sleep with them and as she was the very last of indoor/outdoor cats, she was let in and out... and the brothers supervised her usually when she was out during the day, whenever she asked and that was alllll the time. King of run-on sentences, mom!
She brought many many meals in for us, and that very proudly. We always praised her. It got exceedingly difficult when they were still alive- meaning rats and mice. Sometimes we had to live with them a while before we could capture and turn back out. Sometimes they expired in the overstuffed everything closet. There was a proud and continual assortment of snakes, rats, mice, chipmunks, rabbits and squirrels and assorted other creatures.
She used to knock with her left paw on the deck's window to come in at night; and we foolishly never learned, just opened the door not seeing her but hearing her, to let her in. That was when supper was brought in and served most frequently. We finally learned to keep a flashlight by the door to look at her. mouth. We'd try to slip out TO her rather than she come in with her gift.
About 5 in the morning she would want out to use the bathroom as she refused the litter box though it was there through the years. Usually the middle boy got up and marched her to the deck, opened the door and let her out. They also dug many a trench through deep snow for her so she could go to her favorite place in the yard.
But my part of the story she tells to me was how Robin would always lie asleep in someone's lap when the boys were in the living room. If something needed doing, the phrase; when they were commanded to do this or that always was stated---"Can't. Cat." I'd look and there would be a tiny 6 pound cat asleep in their laps. So I did it myself whatever it was. They could if THEY needed to get up, pick her rounded circle tiny body up and place her on another boy's lap...she never opened her eyes or missed a beat.
She went to the right cabinets and pawed open the door for her paper plates and went to the right cabinet for her Fancy Feast too, and would paw out a can IF she could reach it. True. Smart as can be.
The last thing mom told me was when she developed KD and the vet gave samples of the dry KD food, while mom was slaving away at work one night, she came home and found Robin had found the packet, and truly and really, put it in the litterbox. The was from a table to her box though she never really used it except in dire straits. Robin was deeply loved, and still is to this day. Those were HER boys. I counted for nothing to her. She raised them. She is gleaming with her furs perfectly bathed by her.
Robin was 14 here and we didn't know how to work the camera.
