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Inexplicably, when I was in my first year of college I decided to get my own cat. The family already had two: an old age pensioner and a psychopath, but in a fit of prejudice I wanted a cat that was any colour other than black. All the cats of my childhood, save for one ginger catastrophe in the beginning, had been black. I’d started to wonder if any other colour existed.
So when a friend of my mum’s friend had a litter of kittens going spare, I chose the one and only tortoiseshell fluff ball in the group. I went to their house with the intention of getting that non-black cat, but of course I played with the black and white kittens too. Who wouldn’t? So my mum picked up the tortoiseshell fluff ball, who then proceeded to whinge constantly until she was put down. That should have been my first clue.
I named her Multi Cellular Organism, obviously, but over time she became Tiddles. Anyone who’s ever brought a baby animal into their home knows the energy they bring with them – kittens, puppies, ferrets, humans. You suddenly have an insane, hilarious, adorable and infuriating creature that soon wanders around the house, knocking things over, making loud noises and providing an endless amount of YouTube videos.
I kept Tiddles in my room at night, with a cat tray provided. Never before in my life have I ever been woken up by a smell. Kitten poo has a uniquely strong odour that melts nostril hair, which was bad enough. Worse was that in her attempts to cover it up, she stepped in it. Then she tracked little brown pawprints all over the carpet and my duvet, I am very thankful that she never walked over my face. I don’t know if you’ve ever had to clean out a litter tray, change your duvet then scrub faeces out of a carpet at 2am, but I’m sure you can imagine what a joyful experience it is. Not only that, but trying to clean poo off the paws of a very uncooperative, stroppy and wilful creature when you’re half blind with sleep and praying that she doesn’t scratch you with said paws and give you an infection that will rot your arm off.
Her main character trait, that remains to this day, is her voice. She whinges. She whinged when my mum picked her up that first time, and she’s whinged every time someone’s picked her up since. She doesn’t even open her mouth most of the time, so I don’t know how she does it. Maybe the noise comes out of her ears.
But no matter how much blood she’s shed, how much noise she makes or how grumpy she is, she is loved. I have a host of stories with her at the centre, and when she was little and bored in the mornings she used to burrow under the duvet and snuggle up next to me, purring her little face off. It makes up for the nights spent scrubbing poo off various surfaces.
Kind of.
