I remember the first time I met Precious, a skinny little white and brown tabby cat. She was going to the vet for a checkup and was the only cat I’ve ever seen who purred the entire way to the vet, the entire time she was at the vet, and the whole way home…she also pooped in her carrier on the way home. I would come to learn that that would be a very common occurrence with her. The second time I took her to the vet I didn’t get one block from Marie’s house before she pooped in her carrier and I had to bring her back, clean her up, and get her a new carrier which made us late for her appointment. I think that she planned it that way. At the time I remember thinking that this poor sweet cat would never get adopted. She was so friendly, but I couldn’t imagine anyone putting up with the smell all the time. Who knew that I would be the person that she would live with just a few short months later. I certainly didn’t.
When I moved out on my own, I couldn’t wait to adopt a cat, and couldn’t wait to adopt a cat that had been with Kitty Connection for a long time. Kittens and younger cats with no issues get adopted much easier than older cats, and cats that have things wrong with them. When I told Marie that I wanted to adopt whatever cat Kitty Connection had, that she thought had the least chance of getting adopted I was more than a little nervous when she suggested Precious. I remember thinking something along the lines of “Oh, my God! She’s going to smell up my entire apartment!” I decided to give her a chance though as she was such a sweet cat and didn’t deserve to be bounced around from place to place all the time. I am so glad that I decided to have Precious come live with me. I only got to live with this great cat for four very short years, but at no point during any of those 4 years did I ever need a friend, a companion, or an alarm clock. Precious was always there.
The first few months with her were interesting to say the least. It took a month or so of being on her medication steadily to control the…ahem…smell, but once she settled in and was on her regular regimen of thyroid medicine she got much better. This medicine never stopped her appetite though. That little monster would eat anything that you would put in front of her. When I picked up Precious Marie sent me with a HUGE container of animal crackers that Precious and I shared over the next couple of months. She LOVED animal crackers. She loved everything else too. I’ll never forget the very first night Lisa, my girlfriend, came to visit me in my new place. We were watching T.V. eating a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips while Precious stared at the bag. At one point I stopped paying attention to her for a split second and she seized her opportunity, dove full body into the bag and ran off with a huge mouthful of chips before I even knew what happened. Later on that night I made the mistake of rolling the bag of chips up and leaving them on the counter. I was greeted in the morning by a kitchen covered in potato chips, a torn up potato chip bag all the way in the living room and a very content sleeping cat on my couch. It was far too funny a sight to be mad at her, though it did take quite a while to clean up. From this point on, I always made sure to give Precious her own small pile of chips, not that it stopped her from begging for more when she was done, but she always got her little treat.
A couple of months after I had her, her left eye became infected. She was already 10 years old, and had the hyperthyroid issue, so it was very likely that she was going to be put down rather than put her through an eye surgery. I remember dropping her off and crying on the way home. In a very short time I had grown to really love that little smelly cat that I used to drive back and forth to vet appointments. I also remember how happy I was the day that I got a phone call from Marie after work, letting me know that they were going to perform the operation to remove Precious’ left eye and that after her recovery she would be coming home. At some point between Precious leaving and coming home I took another cat Gennaro in to live with me, and while he and Precious were never good friends, they learned to tolerate each other with minimal fighting after a couple of months. They would even on rare occasions sleep next to each other on the bed. It was very cute.
The stories that I could tell about living with Precious in my old college apartment are endless. One particular afternoon my door blew open without me knowing about it and was open for what I am assuming is quite some time. It was at least long enough for both cats to get out. I remember thinking: “Oh, My God! Poor Precious is declawed (by her previous owner), missing half of her teeth, has only one eye and a hyperthyroid condition. She’ll never survive outside!” As I ran outside, Precious had gone no further than my front porch. When I went to pick her up I got a look from her as if to say “What?” Gennaro had ventured slightly further, to the end of the porch where he immediately fell into a basement window hole. The hole was only a couple of feet deep, so he wasn’t hurt, but was definitely not able to get out. Lisa found him cooing from the hole. A very frightened Gennaro was brought back in as well, and as scary as it was at the time, it makes for a very funny story looking back.
Precious used to love to sit in two particular windows of my old apartment. The apartment complex was a motel style complex, so we had a common porch where everyone had to walk by to get to their respective apartments. Precious used to sit in the window all day watching everyone go back and forth. Occasionally people would stop and talk to her, and she loved every second of the attention that she got.
Most people don’t know that Precious was not only a cat, but also a little furry four legged alarm clock. She was very aware that when the sun came up, it was time for breakfast. She also liked to make sure that I was also aware if this. As soon as the sun would come up, there was Precious up on the bed next to me gently pawing at my nose and meowing. This was apparently the inter-species indication that it was time for the cat to be fed. If I continued to sleep through two or three nose pawings, a gentle poke in a closed eye was the next step, and should I be really tired and roll over and put my face in a pillow, she had a counter move that she liked to call “Sleeping on Daddy’s head” Purring of course while she slept there. She was always purring, but I’m convinced that this particular purring was not nice cat, friendly purring, but spiteful purring as the extra noise and vibrating cat on my head was almost always enough to get me up to feed her. I probably wouldn’t have passed any morning classes without her.
After I finished college Precious, Gennaro, and I moved back to the Boston area with Lisa, and a little dog named Max who was with all of us a couple of days a week. Precious adjusted right away. The extra noise from outside didn’t seem to bother her as she still loved sitting and sleeping in the windows, though she no longer had her porch outside where everyone would walk by and talk to her. She made up for this by having an entire section of a condo complex where everyone living there had cats of their own. I’m not really sure that Precious became friends with the neighborhood cats, but the little 5+ pound monster did like to go into every apartment with an open door and eat whatever food she could find, before moving on to the next apartment. I routinely would have to go remove her from a neighbor’s apartment because she would be hold up by another cat’s food dish and refuse to leave until all of the food was gone, and sometimes not even then.
Precious was always getting into trouble. I’ll never forget one terrifying morning. I woke up to a crying Precious next to me in bed, and before I could even throw my glasses on I realized that Precious had swallowed a pile of string and was choking on it. I grabbed the end sticking out of her mouth and tried several times to pull the string out of her throat. Each time she would scream louder and I couldn’t get the string out. It was like the string was stuck to something in her stomach. I was literally afraid that I was going to turn her inside out if I kept pulling. I decided to take a second to throw my glasses on and reassess what was going on. After all, if she was crying she was still able to breathe. After I got my glasses on and got my head together from just waking up I realized that Precious had not swallowed the string, but had managed to get one end of it tied around her tongue. As I was pulling on the string, I was literally pulling her tongue out. No wonder she was screaming when I pulled. I cut the string off of her tongue, put her down, and got a look as if to say: “Since you’re up, it’s almost breakfast time anyway…” I was still traumatized and she was ready for breakfast…I of course I fed her. If I didn’t I knew that nose/eye pawing and/or purring on my head was in my near future.
Nearly everyone in my section of my condo complex has cats. Nearly everyone who has cats will often keep their doors open and let the cats wander from apartment to apartment as they please. Even though she ate everyone’s food, everyone loved Precious. If I needed to bring her home I would routinely go door to door asking “Is Precious in here?” The response was almost always “She’s right here in the kitchen.” Of course she is. That’s where the food is. They would always bring her out and comment on what a friendly little cat she was. Lisa’s mom would bring her a piece of roast beef every time she came over and would often send it over with Lisa if she didn’t come over herself. The little cat was always excited. Precious stayed with Lisa’s parents at one point while we went on vacation and I have no doubt that she had at least one treat of roast beef every day, and more than likely she had several.
Precious loved when new people would come over to the house. Maybe she thought that all new people had food for her, or maybe she was just being her sweet self, but as soon as a new visitor sat down on the couch, there was Precious to hop up in their lap and start purring (and shedding) on them. She loved getting attention from the new people and would often sit with a visitor for nearly an entire movie, football game, or whatever reason they were there. Nobody seemed to mind, not even the fact that she would shed all over them. All of her new friends loved her, and I would have friends asking me weeks later how she was doing.
One Friday afternoon I left work early and was home doing some housework. I always kept my apartment door open if I was home in the afternoon so the cats could go out and visit the neighbors and this Friday was no exception. Precious went to visit the gentleman across the hall, and after I was done cleaning up I decided to go get her. I wanted to give her and Gennaro an extra little afternoon treat for being good cats and was afraid that if I left Precious’ food in the dish until she came back on her own Gennaro would have eaten it himself. So I go to pick her up and as always the gentleman across the hall tells me that Precious is always welcome. I put Precious down in front of her food, and she sniffed it and walked away. This was very strange. Precious never walked away from food. We had just doubled her thyroid medication dosage so I attributed her lack of appetite to that, but started to get concerned when she wasn’t interested in dinner either.
The next four days were very difficult. Precious wouldn’t eat all weekend and drank very little water. Her favorite way to drink water was out of the faucet in the bathtub and this was the only way to get her to drink anything. Sunday night she really didn’t look good and I think that she knew that the end was coming. I felt very bad for her and I think to try and comfort me a little she slept at least part of the night right on top of my head, which she used to do all the time when we first became roommates. First thing Monday morning we went for a trip to the vet where she was immediately admitted to the hospital in order to stabilize her and find out exactly what was wrong. I got a phone call before I even got into work from the vet that Precious had “pretty severe renal failure.” The vet would keep her overnight in order to monitor her and we would make a decision in the morning. I remember calling the vet later that evening and they told me that Precious was “devouring her food.” That’s what I wanted to hear. She was getting better. That’s what the normal Precious would be doing. My mind was already made up that I was going to take her home and give her at least one last great day of treats and ice cream and drinking from the fountain and whatever else I could think of that she would like. Sadly this day never came. I got a call from the vet before they even opened the next morning that Precious had taken a turn for the worst overnight and was not going to make it. Precious passed away shortly after.
I am so happy that I “took a chance” on Precious. Everyone tells me that Precious was very lucky that I adopted her. I think that it was the other way around. I was very lucky that nobody else came along and adopted her before I did. With a small amount of work and a lot of love the skinny little white and brown tabby cat that nobody wanted became the best cat that anyone could ever ask for. I will miss her forever.