I was never a cat-person until recently. I tolerated them…but had little actual affection for them…until very recently when I was helping a recent-widow at church with some home repairs her recently-deceased husband would have ordinarily taken care of.
As I arrived at her house, I saw a black cat across the street watching me. I called to the cat “Here Kitty-Kitty-Kitty!”
No reaction.
I tried again. “Here Kitty Kitty Kitty!”
Nothing. NADA. Zip.…just sat there giving me a disinterested look.
Then…from two blocks down the neighborhood street… bounding up the center-stripe…came this orange-striped-tabby…at a dead-run. The critter ran up to me an began to wind itself around my ankles purring and looking up at me.
I reached down, and scooped it up…turning it upside-down onto it’s back as I cradled it in the crook of my arm and began to rub it’s belly. The little girl just happily relaxed and purred loud and sweetly.
If I could have justified it…I would have taken her home with me…. but I’d hate for some family or child to miss their sweet little friend.
I may be hooked on cats now.…at least the sweet ones…not like the black one that came with the wife 30+ years ago …that hopped into the warm towels just out of the dryer….and when I stroked him…he sank his teeth into my thumb and scampered-away before I could kill him.
Next school-term…..”Shadow”….moved up to the ranch when the teacher/wife moved in with me. That cat suddenly became a “scaredy-cat” out here in the country. One day he was sneaking thru the grass stalking a buzzard on a dead mouse out in the pasture. When the buzzard realized he had a visitor from behind….he turned…faced the black cat…and merely spread his wings to appear larger.
Shadow blasted off thru the cactus into the brush in Full-high-gear-retreat! We picked prickly-pear thorns out of his face for a week!
Strangely, …Shadow died of old-age several years later. We buried him under a mesquite tree in our side-yard and placed a flat granite marker on his grave…. and the
very next evening, while sitting out on the porch swing…we looked over at the grave-site… and THERE, sitting ON the grave-stone…was a BLACK CAT!
We have no idea where this feral black cat came from…and never saw it again.