Monday, December 14th. 11 days 'till Christmas...
Jasmine arrived at the Porter Animal Rescue Shelter Monday morning. When she went inside she found a young woman sitting behind a desk. The desk had a strand of green garland draped over the front and there was a red glass bowl on the desk filled with Christmas candies.
The woman looked up as Jasmine approached. "Good morning!" she greeted. "How can I help you?"
"I'm looking for Aladdin."
The woman smiled at her. "Are you Jasmine?"
"Yeah."
The woman nodded. "He's expecting you. He's in the cat room." She pointed to a door on the other side of the room.
"Thank you." Jasmine walked over to the door and peered inside the large window next to it. There were at least a dozen or so cats in the room. A couple of them were sleeping, while the others were either playing with the toys or climbing on one of the elaborate cat towers.
Aladdin sat on the floor, holding a small black and white kitten, while another cat sat next to him, rubbing its head on his arm. Aladdin looked up and when he saw her, he smiled and waved her in. Jasmine opened the door and slipped inside, careful not to let any of the cats out. A white kitten wearing a pink bow wandered over to her and sniffed the snow on her boot, before walking away.
Aladdin got to his feet, still holding the kitten. "You made it."
"I did." Jasmine reached over and pet the kitten. "Who's this little guy?"
"This is Figaro. Someone brought him in last week. Apparently Figaro was meowing outside his door in the middle of the night. He brought him for the night, but he's allergic to cats, so he brought him here the next day. He asked us to keep in touch and give him updates."
Aladdin set Figaro down and he immediately walked over to the white kitten who had sniffed Jasmine when she walked in.
"That's Marie," Aladdin told her. "Figaro and Marie have been practically inseparable since Figaro arrived."
"That's sweet." Jasmine looked around at the other cats and spotted an orange cat sitting alone in a corner. All of the other cats seemed to go out of their way to avoid it. "Who's that?" she asked.
Aladdin looked over at the cat. "That's Rajah. He's one of our older cats and he's pretty mean."
"How come?"
"Well, a few years ago he was rescued from here when he was a kitten. He was a Christmas present for a kid. A couple months later, the guy brought Rajah back and Rajah was in pretty bad shape. I guess the guy's kids abused him and he brought Rajah back to get him away from his kids."
"That's terrible."
Aladdin nodded. "We've had a couple people since then come in and adopt him, but the abuse has caused him to become quite aggressive and everyone always brings him back."
"Poor thing." Jasmine walked over to the corner and sat down a couple feet away from Rajah. He had a small, tattered reindeer plush toy tucked under one paw. "Hi, sweetie." Rajah stared at her. Jasmine slowly reached her hand out to him. He hissed and swatted at her. His nail caught her finger, leaving a small scratch. Jasmine retracted her hand. "Well, that's a good way to get on Santa's naughty list. I don't know what's on your wishlist, but you're not going to get it behaving like that."
"Tuna," Aladdin told her, crouching down next to her. "He loves tuna."
Jasmine smiled at Rajah. "Me, too."
Rajah let out a small growl.
"All right. But, you leave me no choice; I'm going to have to tell Santa that you're being naughty."
"He drew blood," Aladdin said, pointing at Jasmine's hand.
Jasmine looked down and saw a small amount of blood dripping down on her finger. She held it up so Rajah could see it. "See? And now I have proof for Santa."
Rajah meowed loudly at her.
Jasmine's mouth dropped open in mock shock. "Do you kiss your reindeer with that mouth?"
Aladdin laughed and got to his feet. "You should probably clean that scratch. Come on, I'll show you where the sink is."
Jasmine stood. "Merry Christmas, Rajah."
Aladdin led Jasmine out of the cat room and through a door marked Employees Only. They went into a small kitchen- like room. There were cans of pet food lined up on the counter and large bags of dry pet food on the floor.
Aladdin took her over to the sink. "You can wash up here. I'll be right back with the first aid kit."
Jasmine washed out the scratch and was just drying her hands when Aladdin returned with the small white box. He opened the box and pulled out the tube of Neosporin. He squeezed a little bit onto his fingertip, then reached out and took Jasmine's hand. He gently applied the ointment to her scratch. Butterflies filled Jasmine's stomach again at his touch.
"Does that hurt?" Aladdin asked.
Jasmine shook her head. "No. It feels good."
When Aladdin finished, he took out a Band-Aid and wrapped it around her finger. "How's that? Is it too tight?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"If I say it hurts, will you kiss it to make it feel better?"
Good God! Jasmine scolded herself. Could you be any cheesier and desperate? Why don't you just throw yourself at the poor guy? You realize you'll never be able to show your face here again, right?
Jasmine tried to laugh it off, though she knew it had to sound awkward. "I'm sorry. That was-"
Aladdin took her hand, interrupting her. He brought it up to his lips and kissed her finger. Jasmine's breath caught. "Better?"
Jasmine nodded. "Much."
OOOOO
Eric pushed the cart through Al's Toy Barn. He and Ariel, and her sisters, had all been gathered together when they walked into the store, but as soon as they hit the first aisle, everyone spread out. They each started grabbing toys and getting excited before tossing it into the cart and grabbing another one.
They were shopping for the toy drive. Every year, on the Saturday before Christmas, Al's Toy Barn sponsors a Christmas party for families in need. On Thanksgiving, Al is closed to the public and lets all kids in need come into the store and make a list of all the toys they want. Then Al puts all of the kids' lists by the entrance of the store and anyone who wants to buy toys for the drive can take a list and buy something for that kid. Whoever participates wraps the presents and brings them back to Al's by the night before the party. At the party, Al dresses as Santa Claus and distributes the presents. The party also has food and caroling. All of the kids who make lists and their families attend the party. Anyone is welcome and everybody who attends make donations. All of the money goes to helping the families.
Al's Toy Barn also partners with Mortimer's department store and the parents of the children can make their own wishlists at Mortimer's. Usually the parents only ask for warm winter gear like sweaters, coats, and boots; even though Mortimer himself encourages them to put anything they want on the list.
John and his family have bought items for the drive every year since John and his sisters were kids. Eric was embarrassed to admit he knew nothing about the drive until he started spending Christmas with them. Since then, Eric and John have gone to Al's Toy Barn every year together. They'd grab a bunch of lists and buy everything on them. They'd spend hours in the store together, playing with they toys and goofing off and getting excited about all of the kids opening their presents. While they were at Al's, John's mom, stepdad, and sisters would go to Mortimer's and do the same thing for the adults and their lists. Once they were done shopping, they'd all go out to dinner together and show off some of the things they got and talk about the people they shopped for. Then they'd all go back to John's mom's house and wrap the presents. It usually took a few hours and they'd be at it until late at night. But, it was always fun.
It was one of Eric's favorite Christmas traditions and he was missing out on it this year.
Ariel knew the toy drive was something Eric did every year and it had been her idea for them to all go to go shopping for the drive. Triton and Athena went to Mortimer's while Ariel, Eric, and her sisters went to Al's Toy Barn. Each of them picked a list and then set out to find the items on it. While it still made Eric feel good to get all of the toys on his list, none of them were shopping together and that took the fun out of it. He hoped he'd still be able to join John and his family when they went, but Ariel had so much planned for this week, he didn't think he'd have time. Part of him thought about ditching Ariel and her family for a day so he could do it, but he knew how much this all meant to her and he wanted to be there for her.
After getting everything on his list, Eric walked around the store until he found Ariel. She had an armful of toys and dropped them in the cart.
"I think that's everything," she said, scanning her list.
Ariel's sisters eventually found them and they all put their toys in the cart, then headed to the registers.
"Did you guys have fun?" Eric asked, as they waited in line.
Andrina shrugged. "It just felt like shopping."
Eric nodded in agreement. Truthfully, this didn't feel any different than going grocery shopping; go in with a list, grab what you need, and then leave.
By the time they got back back to the house, everyone was so exhausted from shopping that none of them were in the mood to wrap presents. Which was just as well since Eric didn't have any wrapping paper. After they discarded their shopping bags in front of the tree they decorated yesterday, Eric sent Anya a text asking her to get him some wrapping paper and drop it off at his house. He would have done it himself, but Ariel insisted the two of them should make dinner for her family.
A couple hours later, Anya arrived at the house. By then, they had finished dinner and everyone had gone off to their rooms for some down time. Eric met Anya outside. She was just getting out of her car. She popped her trunk and Eric walked around to the back of the car. Anya had gotten a couple rolls of pretty paper for the adult presents and some rolls of paper with cute cartoon characters on it for the kids. There was also a shopping bag filled with gift tags and tape; which Eric had completely forgotten he was going to need.
Eric gathered everything up and Anya closed the trunk.
"Thank you for doing this," Eric said.
"It's really no problem. Plus, you bought me dinner."
Eric smiled at her. Anytime he asked her to buy something for him, he wired her some money to cover the cost. But, he always sent more than she was actually going to need and whatever she had leftover was for her to keep, kind of like a tip.
"I really do appreciate this," Eric told her. "I know when I ask you to do stuff for me out of the blue, it's got to be a burden."
"Nah. It's my job."
"During normal hours; which this was not."
Anya shrugged. "I'm getting overtime for this, plus the tip."
"I know, but-"
Anya playfully nudged Eric with her shoulder. "Hey, it's really no big deal. You're my friend, Eric; I would have done this even if you weren't paying me. I know you've got a lot going on and I'm happy to help."
"You're awesome."
"Make sure my Christmas bonus reflects that." She winked at him. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Good night."