Humble beginnings

My boyfriend and I purchased Edgar from a pet shop in Longview, WA. We had only been living together for five months or so, and decided that we were ready to take the leap. Caring for a living creature that is dependent on you for survival is a scary thing when you think about it, almost like having a child.

Being in a new relationship will trigger these sorts of decisions, and I am sure even a long-standing one as well. We looked around at many different shops to find our kitty, one with pizazz and personality, one that just tugged at our heartstrings and begged for us to take it home. I had even explored the option to adopt a full grown cat, because it is important to me and makes the most logical sense to provide a home to an otherwise homeless cat.

But, things didn't quite turn out that way.

On a whim we decided to go into this pet shop that we had never been in previously. There were plenty of puppies, which of course I crooned over and begged my boyfriend to have - to no avail - and other animals that I perused and petted. The owner informed us he didn't have any kittens, but that we should check back at a later time. The only cats that he had were these two tabby cats that never got bought, and had lived their lives in the pet shop.

One of those cats, predictably, was Edgar himself.

He was still, technically, a kitten, though he was past the fuzzy, cuddly, awkward kitten stage, and was showing signs of the full grown cat that he would become. I didn't really consider him as an option, though he worked his devil magic quite admirably upon my boyfriend.

He jumped up onto my boyfriend's shoulders and weaved his magical charms, being calm, and cool, and, of course, exhibiting those much sought after signs of pizazz and personality that we had as our criteria. But still I remained unmoved.

A month went by, and after returning to see if there were kittens, Edgar still remained. They had kittens, of course, small, fluffy, adorably awkward little kittens, and I was determined to make one of the orange ones mine. My boyfriend, however, had other plans. He wheedled and cajoled me into purchasing Edgar, playing on my emotions with the fact that Edgar would more than likely stay in this pet shop for the rest of his life.

So, we brought Edgar home with us - in a box no less, with air holes poked into the sides - and let him loose in our studio apartment.

He was scared, and my heart melted on the spot. We would make Edgar ours, and we would love him and spend many long years with him calmly riding on our shoulders and letting not a thing in the world bother him.

Oh how he had us fooled. It didn't take long to figure out that the calm, cool and collected Edgar back in the shop was a farce. The little demon had played us for fools. And I had the scratches to prove it.