Tweak: “Tell me again about when I was born?”

Tweak has chased her milk ring under the fridge and now has nothing to play with except my free time.

Me: “I have no idea what sort of abomination you slid out of. You were four years old when I found you coiled in a box at the local PetSmart in a puddle of your own urine (or someone’s).”

Me: “It was ‘adopt-a-cat’ day and I was vulnerable. You were a rebound adoption. My beloved ‘real’ cat had just died of kidney failure and I needed something soft and pathetic to lay my blame on.”

Me: “When I got you home (yes, I paid money for you – the equivalent of two goats and a wheel of cheese), I discovered that your belly fur had been chewed off (by you, I assumed), your tail was crooked and naked as an armadillo’s, and your eyes jittered. You were brain-damaged. You could not track flies on the window, and when you tried, your head jangled back and forth like Michael J. Fox.”

Me: “And you were afraid of everything. Cereal, tissues, and me imitating Michael J. Fox. It took a full year of nourishment, love, and tolerance to turn you into a human being.”

–

Tweak: “No, no. Tell me the OTHER story about when I was born.”

Me: “A unicorn wept and a panda laughed, and I lifted you up from the marriage of their souls.”

Tweak: “Ah. That’s the one.”

Tweak curls up on her tower of blankets and sleeps.

 

26 June 2014, “Tolerating Tweak”

 

Tweak – the reason we tolerate.