Life is a Diaper

Poor Kitty, Poor Gracie

As the girls and I were leaving to pick my mom up from work, I noticed that there was a cat sitting in a tree in our front yard. It saw me and started meowing, and that's when I knew it couldn't get out of the tree. I wasn't going to do anything about it until we got back, but Gracie saw it too and begged me to help it. I couldn't reach it from the ground, so I got a chair to stand in off the porch, but I still couldn't quite reach it. I stood there for a good five minutes trying to get the cat to come down just a little bit so I could grab it, but I never was able to get it. That cat sure was happy to see me, though. It purred and rubbed against the tree the whole time I stood there.

I knew my mom would be mad if I wasn't there when she walked out the door, so I had to leave the cat in the tree and go get her. Gracie didn't like that at all, but I finally convinced her that it would be okay while we were gone. She talked about that cat the whole time we were waiting for my mom.

"I'm going to ask Nana if I can keep her," she said. "I'll make her a bed, and feed her, and play with her all the time. I'm going to name her Buttercup because that's my Power Puff Girl name."

When my mom got in the car, Gracie repeated all of that to her. She even convinced her to let her keep the cat when we got it down, but mom told her she probably wouldn't be able to bring it in the house. That was just fine with Gracie, though. She was just excited that she was getting a cat!

I had no idea how I was going to get that cat down. I couldn't reach it from the ground, I couldn't reach it standing in a chair, and it sure wasn't coming down on it's own. I thought about going to my dad's and getting a ladder, but that was too much trouble, and I didn't want to bother him. I tried holding Gracie up and letting her get it, but she started freaking out when I got her half way up. She's afraid of heights, something she inherited from my Grandpa. I even tried to lure that darn cat down with a Chicken McNugget. That didn't work either.

Then, it finally dawned on me - I could back my car up to the tree and stand on the back of it. Why didn't I think of that before? Too simple, I guess. It took a lot of trial and error (I didn't want to back into the tree), and a lot of yelling at Gracie to stay on the porch (really didn't want to back into her), but I finally got it just right and was able to climb up and retrieve the cat.

Gracie was jumping for joy when I climbed down off the car and brought the cat over to her. That's when I noticed that the spot on it's side that I thought was a dark patch in it's otherwise white fur wasn't what I thought it was. The cat had a hole in it's side and was bleeding. It looked like something had bit a chunk out of it. No wonder it was in that tree. Gracie noticed it at the same time, and she ran to the porch screaming, "Oh, my poor kitty" and started crying her eyes out.

I put the cat down and went to her, and she started screaming at me that I had hurt her cat. I explained to her that it was already like that, and that was probably the reason that it was in the tree in the first place. She assumed that some dog had tried to eat it, and started talking about hunting the dog down and shooting it.

My poor baby has been worried about that cat all night. She wants to "take it to the hospital" so they can make it better. I wish I could, but I can't afford to right now. How do you explain to a 4 year old that you're too broke to save her new pet? I think she understood, though. She's been sick with grief over that cat, and I don't know how to make her feel better. She didn't even want to go to the store to buy candy.

The last time I looked out, the cat was sitting on the porch. It looked at me like it was saying, "Well, you got me down, aren't you going to come out here and pet me?" Poor thing. It acts as if there's nothing wrong with it, though. If it's still here in the morning, I'll go buy it some food and maybe I'll try to doctor it's wound. That ought to make Gracie happy again. Posted by sabrina at January 4, 2004 03:16 AM | TrackBack