heartbreaker.

Me at The Cat Shoppe

Nate and I slept in this morning and had tea and coffee. Then we went out for brunch. I like Saturday mornings because the weekend is new and full of potential. The potential to rest and relax. :) After brunch we  picked up some supplies for ITG next weekend and got a couple new cables to charge our phones since Miles has chewed through the four we originally owned. (We're taking extra precautions to make sure he doesn't do it again. Those things aren't exactly cheap.)

We also bought some super glue because another hub cap on the Versa is about to fall off. The plastic hooks broke off almost completely around the hub cap. So I slathered super glue on it and am hoping it holds. It seems to be pretty firm now. We may never get it off!

Before we headed home, we went to The Cat Shoppe. We discovered this place by accident. It's a cat supply store that doubles as a shelter so there are a couple dozen cats (at least) roaming the store, kittens included. We wanted to buy some cat food and hang out with the cats.

When we got there, there was a cage in the middle of the store with two small kittens in it. The smallest was a gray kitten named Charlie. There was a note on the cage that said he had been found at a nearby car dealership. He had probably ridden in under someone's motor. He looked pretty scared but I stuck my finger in the cage and he came up to me and I petted him. He liked it.

Nate has been really good at pretending to like cats as much as I do. :) He likes them, but mostly he says he just loves me and tolerates cats. So I was kind of surprised when Nate came over and said, "Do you want him?" I said, "Don't say that to me!" I didn't think we could handle three cats. I mean, I didn't want to be those kind of people. I've always had my own rule that we won't have more cats in the house than people. Otherwise we're just those crazy cat people. Oh, how many cats do you have? Three. Oh.

But we talked about it and figured with two already, a third wouldn't make that much of a difference as far as taking care of them goes. He was soooo cute. So Nate went over and told the lady running the store that we were interested in adopting him. She came over and opened the cage and let me hold him. He was so little! He started to purr. Then the lady asked if we had any cats. "Two." How old are they? "Three and one-and-a-half." Are they buddies? "Yeah."

I was looking at Charlie when she said, "Oh, you need to have an even number of cats. They naturally bond in pairs, and if you introduce a third, it will break their bond."

Well, there is absolutely no way we can have four cats. Three is pushing it, and four is out of the question. Oh, Charlie. The lady walked back to the register. I told Nate, "Well, I guess we can't do it." Charlie was chomping down on my thumb and I remembered how much damage kittens do to our bodies. We put Charlie back in the cage and I went over to get the cat food we came for. We didn't even get a picture of Charlie. I wanted to get out of there.

We paid and I was melting down before we even got to the car. Poor Nate is so gracious in handling my emotions. Once we were in the car, I lost it. "We could go get him, and ask if we could do a trial period," Nate offered. "I'm sad!" I wailed. "It's like she just punched little Alyssa in the face!" (Little Alyssa is the hopes and dreams and fears in me I developed as a child that crop up as an adult. We had a pre-marital counselor who pointed out how much things we learned to love and fear as children affect our relationships and experiences now.) I cried all the way home, then some more when we got home.

"I had all my hopes up and then she said I couldn't have a kitten!" She had smashed by hopes. Snatched them away. I even Googled this three-cat theory and everyone says it depends on your cats' personalities.

I was kind of mad, too. She must not want those cats to be adopted very badly, I said. Metro would never keep you from adopting a third cat. Is there no one in the world who has three cats? Sure, odd numbers can have someone left out, but I grew up as a triplet. I was even the middle child.

Maybe it was for the best though. We really shouldn't have three cats. So we drove home and I fed Miles and Otis some of their new food and snuggled with them. "You would have loved Charlie," I told them.

"And Nate, you know what we could have said?"

"What?" asked Nate.

"We could have said, 'Charlie bit me!'"