Murphy too!

Once Baxter settled in--or rather, once I got used to him being around--I immediately wanted another cat. It was like an obsession. But better to be rational about it, right? Wait a year. See how the first one goes, and then rethink things. Only I kept thinking about more cats...looking at kitties online. I was like a crazy person. So finally I caved and started looking for real. It was time to expand the family.



Murphy came from a foster home, and while he turned out to be a lovely cat and I did get to save a helpless cat's life, I will never go that route again. Over email, I had arranged a time to come see him. His foster mother seemed normal. I figured she was just your stereotypical cat lover/rescue lady. A little kooky, maybe, but nice. And I guess that's what she turned out to be, only what I hadn't thought about was what sort of dwelling a stereotypical cat lover--i.e., fanatic--resides in. I could smell her apartment as soon as I exited the elevator on her floor. I also heard barking coming from the apartment. "That's funny," I thought. "Why would a cat person have dogs?" And then the door opened. Turns out her apartment was even smaller than mine (a large-ish but still small by non-NYC standards studio) and filled with a minimum of 25 cats and 4 dogs. Everywhere I looked, cats. On the tv? Cat. On the couch? Several cats. On the coffee table? Cat. In the hallway? Cat, cat, cat. In the kitchen? Cat on the fridge, cats on the counter, cats on the microwave. It was creepy. I couldn't even tell where this woman slept, since the piece of furniture most-resembling a bed was covered with heavy-duty garbage bags and--you guessed it--about six or seven cats. I wanted to run away. The smell alone made me want to gag. But I was here for a cat, and dammit, I knew I could provide a better home than this place. At the very least, a more sanitary one.

Unfortunately Crazy Cat Lady liked to talk. Once she introduced me to Murphy (then named Polo) and I was holding him in my arms, bonding with him and longing to take him away from this scary, smelly place, she proceeded to talk about who-knows-what for minute after minute after minute. And you'd think that after you've spent a long enough time in a smelly room, you'd adjust to the smell somewhat? Nope. It was that stinky. Finally I saw a window of opportunity to end the conversation, and we made plans for me to adopt Murphy.

He was delivered the next day. The first thing I did was give him a bath, to get Crazy Cat Lady smell off of him.

And then the fun began.