2017: The Year We Got a Cat

My wife and I have always been dog people. I had a dog when I was younger. She’s had multiple dogs over her lifetime. We’ve always talked about getting a dog later on in life.

It makes perfect sense, then, that a cat would be the first pet we got together. Wait, what?

Back in July, we went out to this mall in Lakewood that has place called Round1, an arcade/bowling alley/karaoke joint. It was our four-year anniversary and we obviously wanted to do something real fancy, which naturally led us to Round1.

Also at this mall was an Adopt & Shop perfectly placed by the entrance so you have to walk by all the cute animals to get into the mall. On a whim, we decided to walk in and take a look at them. While the dogs certainly caught our eyes, the kittens garnered some attention, as well.

It was at this point that our opinions on cats made a complete 180. Of course we had seen kittens before because who hasn’t? But I had never seen one up close before and they were actually kind of cute! We both kind of looked at each other like “Hm. Maybe we’ll get a cat.” That was on a Friday.

Over that weekend, we started doing research on cats and trying to learn all we could to see if this was even something we’d enjoy. Our minds were pretty much made up, though. We were definitely getting a cat.

By Monday evening, we had a cat.

My best friend had just moved back from a three-week stint in New York and was staying with us, so he tagged along. Lo and behold, the Adopt & Shop that we ended up going to was having a 2-for-1 kitten sale!

Kayla and I set out to try and find a cat while Joey reluctantly started looking around as well. I mean, when in Rome.

We brought two different ones into the playrooms they have set up, but neither seemed like a good fit. Then I saw little Thor just chilling in the back of his house and told the lady to bring him out, bring him out, bring him out (yeah, sorry. T.I. just called from 2004 to tell me to stop). Once she brought him out and we played with him for a few minutes, we were sold. Thor was now ours. Joey, meanwhile, found a sweet kitten by the name of Ermergerd (the volunteers at the shelter clearly love naming these cats).

We took them home and promptly renamed them. Thor was now Finn after my favorite character from The Force Awakens. Ermergerd was now Hermoine after one of Joey’s favorites from Harry Potter.

Over the next few months, Joey and Hermoine moved out and now it’s just us and Finn.

While I wish that he would get over his obsession with all of my computer equipment (mainly the cables for just about everything from my mouse to my keyboard to my monitor, which he actually chewed through last week), I can’t imagine us without his little self at this point.

I guess this is an example of never knowing what life will bring you. After years of not liking cats at all, we ended up with a cat. Go figure.