Kitten Day One
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Something was tapping at my nose. I tried to wave it off. It stopped tapping briefly, and then the tapping resumed about three minutes later. For the life of me I couldn't place what I had drunk the previous night that would have caused me to bring home a woman that would have fixated on my nose.
The tapping abruptly stopped, and then something ran across my face. That was enough to garner my complete attention. I sat bolt upright in bed. This apparently was a challenge that could not be ignored. Suddenly an orange blur came flying back over my bed and up my arm to land on my head. I reached up and disentangled Butternut from my hair.
"What is wrong with you, cat. It's four in the MORNING!"
Butternut chirped at me unrepentantly. He squirmed to get out of my hands, and hopped onto my legs. I moved my left foot, and suddenly the kitten attacked it. It was a good thing there was a thick blanket between my foot and his teeth. I picked the orange kitten up off my foot. Deciding my hand was much more dangerous to him than my foot, he reached around my wrist and rabbit kicked my palm while biting my wrist. Oddly enough, for all his ferocity, he was playing nicely. Claws were sheathed, and the rabbit kicks weren't actually drawing any blood. The bites were indenting my skin, but not breaking it.
"Velcro?" The kitten still ignored me. I tried to unlatch the kitten from my right hand to have it latch on to my left hand. I picked my hand up, expecting the kitten to drop onto the mattress when it was no longer supported. Instead it just clung tighter and purred furiously. I got out of bed, being careful of my furry wrist guard, and looked around for something to distract it so that I could go back to bed. I remembered the bag of kitten supplies by the couch. I carefully cradled my attacker and walked over by the couch. After a few moments I found a catnip mouse. I dangled it in front of the kitten, and it ignored it completely.
I dug some more. There was a spider with bells at the ends of the legs. The jingling bells cast a spell on the kitten and it immediately zoomed over to the spider. It was love at first jingle. There was a merry symphony of bells and as they sounded farther away then my initial toss, I decided it was safe to go back to bed.
I slid between the covers and prepared to go back to sleep. Just as I was slipping back into a pleasant dream that featured the US gymnastic team and trapezes, something very wet and furry was dropped on my face. It sang a song of cheap brass bells. I opened my eyes to a purple fuzzy spider with multicolored legs that had literally arrived with bells on. When I removed the arachnid from hell, I saw an orange face and heard Gerty's engine roaring. After a moment I realized that it was Butternut purring. Immediately after I came to this realization, Butternut got up and butted my nose with the top of his head.
This cat was not normal.
I flung the spider and Butternut peeled out after it. There were a few moments of fierce jingling, and then it went silent. The silence stretched out and then there was a soft whisper of noise as the purple spider was returned to me. I tossed the spider to the foot of the bed and the kitten seemingly levitated to the foot of the bed and landed on it. After a few moments, the spider was killed for the third time and placed gently on my lap.
I groaned and flopped back into the bed. The stupid cat was playing FETCH at four in the FREAKING MORNING! I resigned myself to getting no more sleep this day and got out of bed for real. Getting dressed was interesting when I pulled up my pants and found a kitten dangling from my hip. I plucked it off and went into the kitchen and found bread to toast.
After I buttered the toast, the kitten decided to make itself useful by cleaning the knife with its tongue. After picking the kitten off my table three times, I surrendered the territory. At 7AM the kitten fell asleep. Unfortunately, I had a long day at the Gull scheduled, and a few deliveries to make. It could sleep for the rest of the day, but I couldn't. Despite all appearances to the contrary and whatever Audrey and Nathan might think, I actually worked.