The Cat in the Suitcase

Okay, so today, I have a very special Kitten Blog for you... and it isn't about Kitten at all.

Today is a guest post by another fantastic blogger/friend/ex-coworker/Kitten blog lover and also the person who convinced me that I should start blogging about Kitten in the first place (Thanks again)!

Enjoy!

Hello kitty lovers! My name is Lindsey, and I blog over at Happy or Hungry where I talk about my adventures in eating (and just plain adventures in life), as I strive to live healthfully as well as happily.

I am honoured that Catherine asked me to guest post for her, because I am a huge fan of Kitten and I love keeping up with his antics. I also have the ultimate pleasure of knowing Catherine in real life, as we used to work at Dairy Queen together back in the day.
This is a fairly recent picture of us on a lunch date though.

 I am no stranger to kitties, as I have two of my own, Winnie and Dexter. Dexter is crazy (though not quite as crazy as Kitten), and Winnie is the sweetest, most cuddly kitty you will ever meet, so probably the polar opposite of Kitten.


Dexter is on the left, Winnie on the right.

But I am not here today to talk about my own kitty cats. Noooope, I am here to talk about my friend's cat who I accidentally locked in a suitcase for three days.

Don't judge. It sounds worse than it is.

Last year I was visiting my friend Lisa in Calgary, and I arrived late on a Thursday night. We had plans to stay in Revelstoke, BC for the weekend, so the next morning (Friday), we packed up the car and got ready to hit the road in the late morning. Before we headed out to the car, we said goodbye to her cat Charlie.
























Right before we started driving, I realized I had forgotten something, so I had to run back inside.

I noticed that my big suitcase (which I was leaving behind) was closed but not zipped up. Thinking I didn't want Charlie to get in the suitcase and get his kitty hair on all my clothes (the joke ended up being on me), I quickly zipped up the suitcase. Because we had already said goodbye to Charlie, I just ran back outside without thinking about him. I didn't look in the suitcase before I zipped it up, and I definitely did not think that he may have already been in the suitcase.

We proceeded to have some amazing winter adventures in Revelstoke, and I'm sorry to say I did not think about Charlie once.

We arrived back at Lisa's house on Sunday evening, two and a half days later. We unpacked the car, brought all our stuff inside, and started looking for Charlie. We couldn't find him anywhere! We called his name, and eventually we heard a muffled meowing... It sounded like it was coming from my suitcase... 

We unzipped it, and Charlie immediately jumped out. He had been in the suitcase the entire time. Nearly three days in a suitcase. My entire vacation wardrobe was covered in orange and white hair, but surprisingly, he did not do any sort of business in there. Nothing, he didn't even pee! He held everything for three days.

And as soon as he jumped out of the suitcase, he jumped right back into the suitcase! Like he actually liked it! I may have actually done him a favour locking him in there.

 If he was traumatized, he didn't show it. He seemed A-okay.

 
That picture was taken almost immediately afterwards. Back to normal (though he is kind of crazy).

Poor Charlie though. felt so badly. But once we realized he was fine we absolutely died laughing for a good half an hour. I still cannot think about it without laughing.

Annnnd that is my story of the cat in the suitcase.

Don't try this at home. Though, I wonder how Kitten would react to being locked in a suitcase for three days...

Happy or Hungry
happyorhungry.com


If you liked the story about Charlie in the suitcase, you should definitely pop over and check out Lindsey's blog. She has some pretty fantastic stories to tell, like the time she almost got arrested.

Next time on the Kitten Blog, more Kitten!

The Cat and the Rat

What most of my readers don't know, is that before I had a cat, I had a rat. 

Her name was JoJo and I got her in my final year of undergrad. Until Kitten, she was the best pet I had ever had. I would let her out of her cage and she would just run around my apartment exploring. She would also steal food that she found (or my roommates and I gave her) and she would hide it in my one roommate's shoe. We actually didn't know she was doing this until one day my roommate decided to wear flats and found a shoe full of carrots, crackers and Jelly Beans.

Funny story though, when I bought JoJo, she was apparently pregnant. I found out when I woke up one morning to hear little squeaks coming from her cage and saw a pile of what looked like thumbs or fetuses. I called the pet shop to return my unwanted rat babies, but coincidentally they were having a rat baby sale so they were all stocked up. We let the rat babies grow up a bit before deciding what to do with them. In the end, I set them free in a ditch. (Don't judge. It was that or the Reptile Zoo.)

Also humorous, my roommate Sarah lost the runt of the rat babies (we called him runt face) shortly before I freed them and I swear to you, we never found him. 

She really had been the best. One time when she was out, she fell in the toilet and couldn't escape!

Sadly, JoJo developed cancer, a respiratory disorder and lice and I had to have her put down. People always make fun of me for this, but I loved her so much that I couldn't let her suffer. 

But wait! I am almost at the part about Kitten. I promise!

When I moved to Toronto, I really wanted to get another rat since JoJo had been so awesome. So I did. Her name never evolved beyond Rat and she was super lame. I mean she really, really sucked. She hated people and no matter how many times  Boyfriend and I would take her out and give her peanut butter, she just never got better. It was because Rat sucked so much, that we decided to get a kitten! 

Kitten was too little to understand what was going on when we first got him, but as soon as he realized that there was something living in that cage, he never left it alone!

He tried to be sneaky, but being Kitten, he usually failed.

 

By this point, Boyfriend and I had pretty much given up on making friends with the rat and just let her stay in her cage, which I am sure she appreciated since Kitten never left her alone. Kitten and the rat used to actually fight though the cage. Rat would come right up to the side of the cage to scratch Kitten. Since by now you know Kitten well enough, I am sure you have already guessed that Kitten usually lost. 

Sometimes, when I cleaned the rat cage, I would let Kitten and the rat investigate each other. I would watch closely to make sure no one got hurt (Kitten), but usually they were more curious than agressive. Though Kitten does have a unique way of investigating things; it involves lifting up his paw and hitting whatever he is interested in. 

By the way, did you notice the door on that cheap entertainment unit?

In case you were wondering what happened to Rat, I gave her to my sister (though she "passed" shortly after - the rat, not my sister). Boyfriend had taken an allergy test and it turns out that he is allergic to a million things, rats included. My sister ended up getting another rat afterwards, who you can see a picture of on the NOT Kitten post. I will admit, Rattigan doesn't suck, though she's no JoJo. 

I like to imagine that if JoJo was still alive, she and Kitten would be best friends and they would share cheese and Nibs and JoJo would ride on Kitten's back and clean his ears for him. But I guess if that were true, Boyfriend would always be sneezy and goopey eyed and I wouldn't want to have to wipe two sets of goopey eyes a day.

NOT Kitten

This is not a Kitten blog post. This is an entry about my pets however, or more correctly, my family's pets.

I decided to go home for the longweekend since Boyfriend is working 12 hour shifts the entire time. When I spend too much time alone, I end up eating only cookies and ice cream and watching bad chick  flicks (circa 2000).  The saddest part about leaving my Toronto apartment, is leaving Kitten. While there is definitely no shortage of domesticated animals in my childhood home, none of the many furry critters here compare to Kitten. 

I am sure these ordinary animals will bore you. You might not even make it past the first two pictures. But look on if you like.

You probably won't Enjoy!

 Tony: Only likes drinking water from running faucets.

Rookie: Always looks depressed.

Lilly: Obese.

Giorgio: Used to be my cat in undergrad, but she was lame so I passed her on to the fam.

Rattigan: My sister's rat.