Max, my beautiful boy in his gray tuxedo...
Early on the morning of July 31, 1997, I was driving to work and saw two women jogging toward me. Running about 10 feet behind them was a gray-and-white kitten. Very small, too small to be out on its own...perhaps eight or nine weeks old. "Odd," I thought to myself. "Who takes a kitten jogging?"
I turned around, drove back, put down my window, and said to the women, "Excuse me. Did you know there's a kitten following you?" "Yes," said one. "We've been trying to get away from it for a couple of blocks."
Suppressing an urge to run them down with my car, I pulled over, parked and got out of the car. The little gray-and-white guy had bounced across the road and was playing hide and seek around the tires of a car parked in someone's driveway. I finally caught him ("Wheee," he was saying. "Play!"), got back in the car, and returned home with said kitten clinging to the front of me staring up at me. I walked back into the house, and The Spouse said "What are you doing home so quickly?"
"Here," I said. "Get him food, water and a litter box. Gotta go to work." And just like that, we had a third cat.
Max brought us 20 years of love and joy. He was a mischievous boy as a youngster and never did learn to be dignified. He grew quiet in his later years as arthritis and diabetes took their toll, but he purred for us 'til the end. My boy.
Max, April 1997-July 5, 2017
Early on the morning of July 31, 1997, I was driving to work and saw two women jogging toward me. Running about 10 feet behind them was a gray-and-white kitten. Very small, too small to be out on its own...perhaps eight or nine weeks old. "Odd," I thought to myself. "Who takes a kitten jogging?"
I turned around, drove back, put down my window, and said to the women, "Excuse me. Did you know there's a kitten following you?" "Yes," said one. "We've been trying to get away from it for a couple of blocks."
Suppressing an urge to run them down with my car, I pulled over, parked and got out of the car. The little gray-and-white guy had bounced across the road and was playing hide and seek around the tires of a car parked in someone's driveway. I finally caught him ("Wheee," he was saying. "Play!"), got back in the car, and returned home with said kitten clinging to the front of me staring up at me. I walked back into the house, and The Spouse said "What are you doing home so quickly?"
"Here," I said. "Get him food, water and a litter box. Gotta go to work." And just like that, we had a third cat.
Max brought us 20 years of love and joy. He was a mischievous boy as a youngster and never did learn to be dignified. He grew quiet in his later years as arthritis and diabetes took their toll, but he purred for us 'til the end. My boy.
Max, April 1997-July 5, 2017
