Gingercat

I am a ginger kid. My hair is red. One day, when I was out for a walk I found a little kitten (two, in fact). That little kitten also had ginger hair. Imagine my excitement! The gingers would live in a happy, peaceful coexistence of sunshine and rainbows and happy faces!



We named my gingercat Pepin and he was ADORABLE. He had these big blue eyes and this ridiculously bushy tail and he was just happiness and cuteness itself and he fit in your HANDS and I LOVED HIM.



And for a while, life was hilarious. He tried to show us his true personality, but we were blind to his ginger ways; I was too fully enamored with his fuzzy orange face and his big blue eyes. And as long as he never tore up any of my books, what did I care how ludicrous he was!? Dmitri, our other cat, was not fooled. He was wiser than the both of us.



But how could I resist this?



Then, suddenly, Pepin got sick. Pepin got really, really sick. After a lot of crying and a lot of spazzing out, we were told that Pepin had eaten something and it was blocking his stomach; we had to take him to the vet in order to open his belly to remove a massive knot of elastic HAIR TIES or else my face would have been stuck like this for all time:



The vet did a wonderful (expensive) job and my fuzzy gingercat was back! He was fixed! He had a shaved belly and was exceedingly high! Oh, but I was happy -- I love Pepin, I was so excited to have him home and not dead that I barely even cared that he was so stupid he ate a pile of hair ties (which I had to go out and buy again). I also barely cared that for some reason the vet gave the hair ties back. Whatever. My cat was alive!!



And then he promptly tried to eat my brand new couch. I don't know why. I think my head exploded a little bit while I screamed at him.



Slowly, after dumping him in a tub of water and watching the little guy run away from me for a week, I forgave him. He's a ginger, I'm a ginger. It's a match made in heaven, right? I can't stay mad.
Then he got sick. Again.

Whatever, we were old hats at this -- we had the vet trips down pat. Off he went for another surgery.



This is what I saw when he left:



And this is what every single person at the vet's office claims he looked like:



I see some remarkable differences. Clearly the ginger is manipulating ...someone. Maybe he's the vet's secret agent?





In any case, we got the gingercat home and he had to wear a cone of shame for a while but before long, he and I were best of buds and doing gingerstuff again.

But I wish I could find Huck Finn...