We had full authorization. In writing. Notarized.

It became necessary to procure a new family member for Ava’s household. Specifically, a kitten became necessary. Necessary, as in needed. On Tuesday, the Sisters met for a delicious breakfast to fortify themselves to find said kitten. After we were thrown out of the restaurant for loitering, the search began. You might think it’s easy to find a kitten in a city the size of ours – after all, it supports three major shelters with annexes –  but it’s not.

We went to the first place thinking there’d be lots of kittens to pick from. We were handed a form to fill out. It wanted to know about our cat

As much as we’d like to have this kitty, this isn’t what we were looking for, although the adoptable ones were all about his size.

experience (lots) and what we’d do if the kitty ruined our sofa and was climbing the curtains – ummmmm, remove it from the curtain? What if it made a mess in our bed? Wash the linens? We have no idea if there were correct answers because we never got to meet any kittens. They didn’t have any. Not a single baby cat.

With high hopes, we were sent to their annex. They claimed to have several “younger” cats there but this was incorrect. They had no wee kittens at all. We did meet an extremely charming orange cat whom we would have considered even though he was too big except he was very attached to another kitty and we didn’t have the heart to break up the pair.

The next shelter had a six page long application and required two references. That’s the gods honest truth. They would not give you a cat until you were thoroughly vetted and background checked with the FBI. All we could think was that Sara Palin should have gone through such a shake down to become the VP nomination . . . anyway – they admitted they had no kittens but let us touch the older cats which made us and the cats happy.

There was one last shelter to visit. We went with almost no enthusiasm. It’s waaaaaay on the edge of town and necessitated Amy’s honey to have to pick up the kiddies from school because we wouldn’t have made it back in time (Thanks brother-in-law!). We kept asking each other how it was possible that not a single kitten was available to adopt in the WHOLE city. How?

With almost no hope, we entered the facility and were directed to enter an orange door. What no form(s) to fill out? No blood sample? How about some finger prints for the NSA? But nope, the lady manning the desk said – “Go right through that door and have a look.” We were almost afraid, this was too easy compared to all of the other places we’d been to that day. But we did as we were told (that’s rare we assure you) and went in . . .

Come back on Sunday to find out what happened on the other side of the orange portal.