The CATastrophe

Once upon a Halloween party...

...I made the acquaintance of a lovely little white speckled kitten. Her manner was calm and sweet and curious. I thought to myself, “I’m lonely and bored and could use a friend. Why not find a friend whose poop I need to clean up every other day?” And thus began the tale of Riley Gerken.

As you can probably guess, the cute, SANE kitten I met that Halloween night is not my Riley, but rather Riley’s sister (who probably has a name by now, but didn’t when I met her). She was the inspiration for the biggest impulse purchase of my life.

Dazzled by Unnamed’s cuteness, I made the bizarre decision to trek out the very edge of Rabat (props to Anna for putting up with that decision and all of the subsequent disasters) to the embassy district to pick up the sibling of a cat I had met once while relatively intoxicated.

I was quickly made to pay for this decision. My adorable new grey and white kitten was rather displeased about being taken away from its parents and hordes of siblings (seriously the woman had at least 9 cats roaming her backyard) and to be liberated from the relative feline paradise of some expat’s garden. She chose to voice her displeasure by 48 hours of constant biting, screaming and suicide attempts.

Night 1:

A taxi, tram and short walk later, we got my traumatized new kitten “home.” I tried to make her feel as safe and happy as possible, but never having had a kitten (especially not a feral kitten) I became keenly aware that I had absolutely no idea what that entailed. I put her in the kitchen – a smallish space where she couldn’t cause too much damage (or so we thought) – and checked in on her periodically, not wanting to overwhelm her with my presence. After a few hours of my affections being rebuffed (by which I mean, being bitten, scratched and generally hissed at), I was ready to give up. Clearly this cat would never love me. I went to bed on the couch, leaving the kitchen door cracked a bit, hoping that she would spontaneously realize her love for me and come cuddle. Howling, howling and then silence. Sweet silence and sleep. The next morning I awoke worried about the lack of frantic meowing. Shortly thereafter we invented my least favourite game “Where the fuck is the cat?” We looked everywhere. In every box and cupboard, under every appliance. We even tipped over the oven to see if she was under there. But nothing, not a solitary meow, not a clue. Until we smelt it. A feral smell. That was when the panic hit. Oh my God, am I so useless of a person that I allowed my cat to die on her first night under my protection?!? It was coming from the oven. From INSIDE the oven? That’s right folks. In her terror, the then unnamed Riley had crawled up the back of the oven, inside the wiring, had made a little nest and then violently released her bowels. ALL OVER THE INSIDE OF MY FRIEND’S BRAND NEW NEVER BEFORE USED OVEN. To say that she’s persona non grata in this apartment is an understatement. Have I mentioned that I’m basically moving in with them in a couple of weeks? Oh dear.

Night 2:

This time, we decide to quarantine her in the bathroom. We hope that the smaller size of the room will be less overwhelming than the kitchen and are pleased that the door is closeable and there is nothing valuable that she can break and nowhere she could crawl into and hurt herself (or so we thought). Eventually we get used to the yowling noises and fall into a sort of half sleep. At 3.30am we are awakened by the sound of Lynne screaming our names. The tiny kitten has somehow managed to jump 7 feet into the air, open and fling herself out a window. She is now dangling out the window by one claw. She was mercifully retrieved and I spent the rest of the night in the bathroom trying to sooth her and trying to stop her from jumping at the closed window. One can’t help but feel a little hurt that she felt that possible death and certain maiming were preferable to my company.

The next morning I left as early as possible to spare Lynne and Anna the continued annoyance of what was quickly becoming the world’s most high maintenance cat, and adjourned to the train station for 5 hours of trying to convince train personnel that I wasn’t transporting an animal despite the fact that my bag kept meowing.

Thankfully , since arriving in Marrakech, Riley has evolved into a somewhat saner cat. I say somewhat because she certainly does still have her odd moments. Our first night together in Marrakech, we bonded over the movie version of Phantom of the Opera and vegetarian pizza and she fell asleep curled up on my lap. I felt such a sense of triumph. She’s slept on or next to me every night since. When she was little she used to curl into a ball and perch on my hip, but recently she’s taken to crawling under the blankets with me and sleeping just under my chin. She purrs when she breathes in and out, and the effect is like sleeping next to a very small fuzzy old man who snores like a tractor engine. It’s actually difficult to sleep when I’m not in Marrakech because I miss her funny snoring.

 Despite the occasional annoyance, like her penchant for attacking my feet while I’m sleeping or her predilection for sitting on my keyboard while I’m typing, I’ve grown immensely fond of Riley and her Wiley Coyote moments. If she’s my first step on the way to crazy cat lady-hood, I’m alright with that.

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Riley says hi.