The Story of My Life: The Vet

Allow me to continue the great Saga of my humble beginnings and eventual rise to power (as begun here, since you will want to read it). It wasn't long after the events previously recounted that I met Charity.

(Hello, Charity, if you are reading this! I like you! Purrr purrrr. You can pet me next time you come over, and tell me how pretty I am, and bring me treats, and mousies, and anything you feel like! Purr purr.)

Let me tell you about Charity. She has a nice soft voice and nice soft hands, and she took one look at me in my box and said, "Oh, my! Isn't she pretty?"

Insightful human. I like her.

Charity was just visiting the Boy and the Mother, who were her family. The next day, she went home and told her roommate about me. And would you guess who her roommate was?

That's right!

All wretchedness aside, Anne Elisabeth recognized that her purpose in life was at last revealed. When Charity told her that I needed a permanent home, she said: "Until this moment, my world has been devoid of all meaning. Now, I look forward into a future of servitude, my whole being poured out in service to the one, the great, the beautiful Minerva!"

Well, something along those lines.

But she did pick my name, "Minerva, "which I like rather well. I don't care so much for the "Louise," since Anne Elisabeth tells me I'm named after a chicken. To punish her, I pretended not to know my name for the first two years I lived with her. That'll teach her! Someday, when I rule the world, I'll rename her Mehitabel, and we'll see how she likes that.

Anyway, she said she wanted me, and the next time Charity went to visit her family, I was packed up in a box, placed on the front seat of Charity's car, and driven away to my new life! I will never forget that moment when I first set eyes upon Anne Elisabeth. I was waking up from a snuffley daze, enjoying the sunshine shining through the car window into my box. Suddenly, the car door opened, and these hands came reaching in, and this voice came crashing down.

"Ooooooooos a beeeeeyoooootiful pitty kitty bitty witty. . ."

I don't think I'd ever heard so much baby-talk in one place at one time in all the long weeks of my life. So undignified. I was still sick with the sniffles, and Anne Elisabeth decided to get me some medicine right away, before even letting me into my new home. She took me to the vet . . .

The Vet.

I do not like The Vet.

No.

I do not.

If only one could ever return to those innocent days before one knew The Vet existed! It's like The Vacuum Cleaner, only not so loud and much more horrible. Baby that I was, I did not know what I was in for at the time. Anne Elisabeth took me out of my box and carried me in, and we sat in the waiting room having a nice long cuddle. I hadn't had such a nice cuddle since I don't know how long! I nuzzled up under her chin (snuffling and sneezing a little) and purred and purred. I was really beginning to think Anne Elisabeth and I might just get along.

And then The Vet entered.

"We want to clean out her ears," The Vet said.

And I said, "You want to what?"

Needless to say, we were not amused.

When at last, they handed me back to Anne Elisabeth, she said to me: "Minerva! I am so embarrassed! How could you use such dreadful language out in public? What will they all think of you?"

My hope and intention is that they will live forever in dread of my return . . .

"Bad, bad human! No!"

After that, my new human brought me home and plopped me down in a pink ploof.

I felt very miserable.

Gug. Colds are the worst.

I was also a little drugged at the time.

"Don' dake ma pidgure . . . oh. Danks! Dank-ou bewy munge!"

So much miserablenesses!

But, I thought, perhaps I have finally found myself a home?

It was then that I heard a scritch-scratch scratching at the bedroom door. And someone without said:

"Meeeeeeroowl? Anne Elisabeth, what do you have in there?"

Uh oh.