As interpreted by her human benefactor

Life didn’t start out easy for me. My mother was a feral cat, born and raised in the mean streets of west Mesa. I have no memories of my tom cat father. He was never in the picture. Mom was left to raise six of us littermates. After the milk ran out, we didn’t get fancy human food like chicken or fish, mostly lizards and the occasional dove part.

As I got older, I had a yearning to explore the world outside of the bush she was hiding us in. When mom was away, I started sneaking out and exploring. I’ve always been curious about things. There were these gigantic shiny beings that moved quite strangely, but at incomprehensibly fast speeds. They would often swallow and spit out these hairless animals that walked around on their hind legs.

One day when it was quite hot, the large shiny being looked to be sleeping, so I went under it for some shade. Suddenly there were foot falls coming towards me. The back-leg walker was swallowed by the Shiny One and a loud noise overwhelmed me. Remembering how my mom would carry me when I was younger, I jumped up to Shiny One's belly and held on.

Suddenly the ground below me started moving, then moving faster, and then even faster, until it was just a blur. I hung onto whatever I could as the movement and the deafening noise continued. After what seemed like an eternity, Shiny One finally stopped and ejected Back Leg Walker.

Not knowing quite what to do, I decided to wait for Mama to come back. So I stayed quiet and waited.

I cried out for Mama a few times, but if I heard something walking around by me, I assumed it was dangerous and just stayed quiet. This went on for quite a while. It got dark, then light, then dark again. Finally, I kept crying even when I heard the movement by me, but my worse fear was realized. I was now being aggressively pursued.

They started coming at me from all sides, with their sticks and nets. I eluded them for quite a while, but I was eventually captured, surrendering without incident. Once that happened, they took me to a nice cool place and gave me food and water. Not sure why I was resisting them so much earlier, but I was young and stupid.

I spent time at a juvie where they gave me all the food I wanted and I underwent some sort of operation. Came to realize that if I played these guys, I could get anything I wanted - food, toys, furniture, and this wonderful substance called catnip. After a few weeks, these people that smelled vaguely familiar brought me to their car (one of the older kittens in the orphanage explained to me the whole car thing) and took me to my new home. With everything I learned in juvie, I have these guys catering to my every whim.

I’ve lost all contact with my brothers and sisters, but I know I'm the one that struck it big, living large in the suburbs, the only cat in a house with a four-animal Cat Castle.

To quote the Rock Poet, Joe Walsh: (Editor Note – Wait, how does a cat know about music?)

I can’t complain

But sometimes I still do

Life’s been good to me so far.

 

Unassociated Press clipping April 22, 2017

Mesa Kitten Rides Car to New Home

A feral kitten took quite a wild ride, holding on for dear life inside the engine compartment of a car for 13 miles while reaching speeds of up to 45 mph. The car eventually came to rest in the garage of the owner’s east Mesa home. The kitten then hid quietly in the parked car, still unnoticed until a day later.

Once the unexpected visitor was detected, she was still hiding deep in the recesses of the car. They called animal rescue and the Kitten Extraction Team was sent over. Stowaway, as she would be named, was eventually removed from the car. She was hungry, thirsty, and a bit dirty, but otherwise completely unharmed.

Although the family was not planning on another cat, they reasoned that riding on the inside of their car, and waiting for over a day to find her, had earned her a place in the family. After Stowy was cared for by AZ Humane Society and made ready for adoption, the kitten came back, this time to the inside of the house, rather than the inside of a car.