Ripley

I’ve had pets all my life: dogs, cats, a guinea pig, fish and even a house fly (but just for one day – short life span). I’ve settled on cats as my favorite and like to have more than one so they’re not alone when I’m at work.

Several years ago I had just one cat because I had another cat die the year before.  I decided it was time to adopt again and had to decide where to find my new kitty. At the urging of a friend, I visited the local animal shelter to look for a kitty needing a home.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted a kitten or adult cat and figured I’d know when I met him or her.

So I arrived and found out adopting a pet was about as difficult as adopting a child.  After filling out form after form after form and promising to raise the cat Catholic, I entered the area where the cats are kept. Oh my nose loved that!  I should mention that I’m allergic to both dogs and cats but I deal with it because I can’t imagine my home without pets. I did the shots for a long time and have become somewhat immune to my cat but the shelter was another level of allergens.

So I stuffily walked through the area looking at and talking to the cats in their cages. The shelter folks tried to get me to adopt the poor hard-to-adopt kitties like the three-legged one-eyed older cat. Call me selfish but I prefer a cat who I hope will be low maintenance.

Then I came upon a cage with one lone black kitten.  She was a tiny thing and I can’t say she was really all that cute but something drew my interest.  I opened the cage and reached in to pet her.  (I later got yelled at for doing that.) She was very high energy and latched onto my arm like it was a life preserver. I was hooked.

So a few days later, the kitten had been spayed and we were on our way home. The first task on my list was deciding on a name for my new little one.  She liked to bite a lot and generally cause mayhem so I settled on Ripley for a name after the feisty female lead of the Alien movie series.

For the first week, little Ripley was confined to my home office so I could get the cats acquainted. We went through the usual steps with the hisses which generally ensue but it was finally time to set her free. She had actually been out and about in my arms quite a lot in the first week because she came home from the shelter with the respiratory infection which is so common to confined groups of cats. While she wasn’t feeling well she wanted to be held all the time so for about three weeks I carried the kitten around while she repeatedly sneezed in my face.  But she soon got better and was ready to conquer the world.

One of my first discoveries with Ripley was that she had an issue with beds. Every time she got up on a bed she peed on it.  It could be my bed, the guest bed, whatever, but she always peed. Interestingly, she did not pee on furniture – it was just beds.  So I locked her out of the bedrooms and anytime she followed me into the room I had to make sure she did not get on the bed. It took about six months for her to grow out of the bed peeing and I never figured out the cause.

But the peeing didn’t stop there.  Over the years, any time Ripley is unhappy about anything she pees to express her displeasure. I had to take a urine-soaked overnight bag on a business trip one time and I assure you that’s the last time I left packing until the last minute. Ripley doesn’t like me to go away. She has peed on every piece of luggage she can find so now they’re locked up where she can’t get to them.

Ripley expresses her feelings other ways as well.  One of her favorite things to do is to get into my closet and pull all the clothes off the hangers.  And if she’s especially displeased she may pee on something to further make her point. So now she cannot get into the closet.  My clothes and suitcases are well secured.

You’d think she’d give up wouldn’t you? If she can’t get to my clothes, another favorite game is to pull the bath towels down and pee on them. And if she can’t get the bath towels, the bath mat will do. Or the rug by the back door.

I should mention that Ripley is the Houdini of the cat world. She regularly goes through the kitchen cupboards, the bathroom cupboards, the front closet, the guest room closet.  Luckily she cannot breach my bedroom closet.

So why do I love this pee-filled furball? Ripley trusts me and only me. She hides when friends and family visit but I can hug her, kiss her, roughhouse with her and she loves it. At night when I read in bed, she curls up in the crook on my left arm and makes biscuits on my biceps. It’s our cuddle time. (And on a side note, I love my Kindle because it frees up my left arm for Ripley.)

So to sum up my tale, Ripley is a cat with an attitude and she’s not afraid to express it. I often wonder why she’s like this and the only thing I can think of is that she must have been traumatized as a baby. I don’t know anything about her life before ten weeks old when she came to live with me.  But at the end of the day, I adore her. Brat or not, her home with me is secure.

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