Sure they're cute, but start feeding them and you end up with sixth-graders everywhere

There are five of them altogether, staring at me with the kind of wide-eyed longing nature instills in the young as a way of tricking grown women into a lifetime of vacuuming.

The important thing is not to look into their eyes.

"No," I say firmly.

But natural selection has equipped them with an arsenal of methods for winning me over to their cause. They beg.  They whine. They make outrageous promises. They Google.

There is no easy way to come between a pack of 12-year-old girls and a litter of stray kittens they are determined to rescue. Resistance, as any member of the Justin Bieber security detail can tell you, is futile.

They scour the Internet for information on "orphaned and abandoned kittens" and scratch out supply lists. They text everyone they know. They change the screen savers on their cell phones to kittens.

They cannot possibly be expected to give them up. They are ready to devote themselves completely to the care of Milky, Stormy, Boots, Fluffers, Oreo and Sox, who were just a bad smell under a a pile of lumber scraps in the garage an hour ago.

"They are not orphaned or abandoned," I tell them. "Their mother will come back for them. "

What if she doesn't? they plead. There is no mistaking the hopefulness in their voices. 

"They are not even weaned," I say.  "You have no way of feeding them."

It is only a matter of seconds before www.overpricedkittenformula.com proves me wrong.

From there it is a predictably short step to the cash register at the PetsR2Expensive Superstore where two kitten-sized baby bottles and a 12-ounce container of Kitten Milk Replacer costs me $32 and the rest of the afternoon.  It is, says one of the girls, "the best day ever." 

And I am the best mom on the planet, or at least in the sixth grade.  But only for today.

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Comments

[eurolush]

There but for the grace of God go I.

[Paulita]

First children then kittens, can you sink any lower for trying to lure in blog readers?

[Suburban Kamikaze]

I am sure of it.

SK

[Sue]

I have a group of friends called The Network. We are what happens to sixth grade girls when no one steps in to nip this stuff in the bud. We are the ones who get our husbands to drive over to City Hall and help take apart a city vehicle with a kitten stuck somewhere inside. We have had baby showers for kittens (don't knock it, it's all the alcohol and fun but no labor stories, and the cat toy gifts are really cheap). We pass around the humane traps and know the correct proportion of baby food to chicken broth for sick animals. One of us handles all the birds in spring. No one bats an eye at the panicked phone call asking for help transporting the baby squirrel/injured rabbit or whatever to the rehabilitator in the next county.
Your daughter could grow up to be us. And actually that's not such a bad thing, because these are the best friends I've ever had.

[nthnglsts]

Whew! Lucky it was kittens. In your garage, it just as easily could have been coyote pups or, in my neighborhood, baby possums or iguanas. Think of where you'd have to go for that kind of formula!