Kenny was a kitten, was a kitty, was a cat.  Kenny was a young master, what you think about that?  Kenny, Young Master Kenny, was a cat.

Kenny is a foster cat whose origins are shrouded in mystery.  The story we were told at a White Bear Lake residence involved a dog carrying Kenny out of the woods in its mouth then depositing the kitten at a construction site.  The workers called White Bear Lake Animal Rescue and Kenny acquired a fear of everything.  Knowing that several other couples refused to adopt Kenny due to his extreme shyness, I question the veracity of this story, but regardless, he ended up with Janelley and I.  A marker in our evolving relationship, Kenny was an even bigger long term commitment than our one year lease.

Kenny was a cute and playful kitten, with facial markings giving him a mustache and goatee.  He was strictly an indoor cat but did manage to get away from us and hide under parked cars a few times.  The only real scare we had was at our last place in northeast Minneapolis, where we believed he had been locked out of the duplex.  We later learned that he had merely spent a harrowing night in the closet of our crackhead upstairs neighbor.  Ken-Ken nearly avoided moving with us later that year by hiding in the basement, but I managed to lure him out before we U-Hauled ass to Moorhead.  Our next cat scare happened last week.

Our growing family visited several sets of grandparents over Thanksgiving, with a quick stop at home to break up the long weekend.  During our layover, we accidentally let Kenny out the side door.  It happened while we were busy schlepping kids, car seats, suitcases, and guitars; all the ingredients for a Thanksgiving family jamboroo.  The upshot is that Kenny was on his own from Thursday to Sunday night, as I worked a twenty-nine hour shift and the rest of my family stayed with the grandparents.  Poor Kenny, an inside cat thrust into an outside world.

We worried, but we didn’t cancel plans to wait by the door either.  We hoped, but we also understood that our nearly five year relationship may have come to an end.  If the cars didn’t get him, Stubby the Squirrel might, his lack of a tail more than compensated for by his ponderous gut.  We knew that cats usually come back, but having experienced the loss of our fish, we dreaded the worst.

Coming home from my long shift, I saw that the food I had left outside was a bit diminished and my spirits soared.  Sure, it could be Stubby the Fatass Squirrel who ate the food, but it could also mean that Kenny was alive and nearby.  I propped open our screen door, turned on a light, and waited.  I was doing well until my eye chanced on what I like to call our imperative pillow (pillows that tell one what to do or think) reading, “A Home Is Not A Home Without A Cat.”  An hour later, the cat came back.

Our joyful reunion was not marred by accusations of human neglect or recklessness, but occurred purely at the cat level.  Down on all fours, we rubbed the sides of our heads against each other, reaffirming our bonds as man and cat.  All is well that ends well, and our family is whole once again.  Kenny’s dish is a little more full than usual this week despite his feline bulimia issues, and we are more mindful of the side door and its temptations for our favorite non-human, Kenny the Cat.