Grandma Henke

“What is that thing walking down the sidewalk?”    It looked like a cross between a kangaroo rat, a Martian, and a scrawny, hairless rabbit.   Whatever it was it looked like it was a baby and it wobbled on extra long legs like a newborn horse … but it definitely wasn’t a horse.   And if you thought Dumbo had big ears!    Whatever this was it should have been able to fly.

Being the animal lover that I am, I left my comfortable rocking chair on the shady patio, on a hot Southern Utah summer day, to check it out.   The last thing I expected it to be was a kitten … but it started to purr the minute I picked it up..    This animal/thing absolutely did not look like a feline.   Besides its weird shape it hardly had any hair.     Oh, and did I mention that it had a cold in both eyes?    Ewwwww

So, what’s a mother to do in a situation like this.    I mean the baby was ugly as sin and it was purring at me … so I took it into the house and give it a bath, surrounded by scoffers and laughers.    It was skinny everywhere except it’s belly, which was hanging low and swollen fat like something in a Disney cartoon.     Lynn decided to look it up on the Internet … “hairless cat with giant ears” and because it was so ugly and unusual he agreed we had to keep it, even though he was up to here (picture the top of his head) with pets at that moment.

We named him “Squiggy” but to the kids he is still referred to as Ugly Cat.   The first thing Monday morning I took him to the vet to see if he had a disease we could  catch.   I mean this is how strange this animal looked … when I put him down on the receptionists desk she asked ME what it was.    Anything that strange looking was bound to have a disease … and the doctor thought so too.     

He said,. “It appears healthy but I think there is something wrong with its stomach because it’s so bloated and fat for such a skinny animal” and he proceeded to poke a long needle into its stomach to see if it was full of liquid, which it wasn’t … it was just weirdly fat.     So then he asked me if I had other animals and well, yes I did … I had an adorable half Persian cat named FiFi.    “Maybe I better do a blood profile on this cat just incase … I don’t want your other cat to get sick.”   

$160 dollars later, this stray whatchamacall-it was pronounced healthy and ugly, and had its first series of vaccinations.    FiFi loved him and she turned into the mother she always wanted to be.   Squiggy loved having a mother and purred all the time.

Six months later Squigs metamorphosed like the story of the Ugly Duckling and … wallah … he was big, fluffy, and healthy looking, with a huge furry tail like a racoon’s.   We got him neutered so he wouldn’t wander away or be a menace to society.  (Ka-ching … another $60.00).   

One day when he was about a year old Squigs went outside for his daily exercise in the yard and … disappeared forever.    We think he was cat-napped … in his prime.   He was abandoned for being ugly and stolen for being beautiful.     We loved him both ways.   Ugly is only skin deep.

Technorati Tags: Ugly kitten, beautiful cat, stray kitten, cat-napped