In September 2006 our previous cat, Nina passed away. That year was crappy in more than one way, and the poor cat’s illness and eventual death was the sad cherry on top.

After the unfortunate events the family agreed that we don’t need another cat, ever.

Two months later the topic of kittens became unusually frequent. Not that we wanted a cat, ever again, because we didn’t, not anymore. But if we did, we would have like a gray one, we like gray cats, and it would be really young, so we’d bring it up properly, as opposed to our other cats who were strays and picked our home as their place to live, and they had no vaccination and their medical history was unknown to us.
This theoretic cat would visit the vet frequently to keep its health in check and get all the vaccinations. It would have the litter box in the third floor bathroom, and I’d make toys so we could play, but then again, it’s not that we would actually get a cat, we were just having a thought experiment.

One month later we were browsing pet related websites for candidates and eventually found a litter of 13 weeks old gray kittens.

We talked to the owners who were happy to give the little bastards away, so we wasted no time: On the dark and cold evening of January 5th, 2007, our team (my mom, my bro, his girlfriend and myself) jumped into the car and drove to the other side of Budapest.

After getting lost a few times we finally arrived at the suburban house. The family living there were surrounded by cats and dogs. We entered the small hallway where the owner lady opened the wardrobe door revealing a shapeless furry blob with a few feet sticking out here and there. The bunch fell out from the dark and warm nest to the bright and cold floor, where they quickly acquired a more cat like shape. There they were, three surprised, adorable kittens, one of which was going to become ours. We just didn’t know which one.

While the female members of our task force were mesmerized equally by all three of the little creatures, after a few minutes I was pretty sure who I’m going to vote for.
There were the three kittens in a… well… less than relaxing environment: four strangers giggling, poking, commenting, bright light, cold, weird smells. Two out of the three little fellows were just sitting there most of the time, calling their mother. (Who was in the other room watching the events in a slightly bored manner through a glass door.) The third one, a little girl, was crying in tandem with her brothers for a while, but then she got bored of the fruitless effort. She took a more practical approach and started scraping on the (now closed) wardrobe door. She was trying to climb up on the door, checked the cracks, smelled the shoes, wondered around looking for a back entrance and sometimes, she too, sat down and called for her mum, just in case.
Seeing this pragmatism and self sufficiency I was sold.

The others agreed with my assessment so we picked up this, not yet named, little wonder. I put her into a brand new carrier box (made comfy with old clothes), we get back to the car, waved good bye to our hosts and started the ride home. She was not really amused by the turn of events. In a high pitch voice she made it pretty clear that she doesn’t want to leave his family, doesn’t like the noisy car or us for that matter. The carrier box had a grid wired door and top section, so I put my fingers in so I could calm her down. That didn’t happen, but I gave her an idea, a new way to approach the problem, a new angle so to speak: she managed to climb up to the wire grid top of the box and started clinging upside down using her curved claws. (And she did not stop screaming, not for a minute.)

She were climbing all over the place and the bumpy ride often sent her flying in random directions. Since her acrobatics were usually stopped by the walls of the box, I felt the need to take matters into my own hand (literally) before she harms herself. I opened the carrier box’s door and slipped in my arm. The idea was that I keep her safe and warm in my palm. Unfortunately her take on the situation was slightly different: she took me opening a door as my acknowledgment of defeat, so she stopped yelling and entered my sleeves. To her bitter surprise the warm tunnel did not contain any of her former family members, only part of her new company. Disillusioned (and carefully pulled) she left my coat, suddenly leaped to my lap and headed toward the gearbox. The prospect of us trying to catch the kitten hiding in the dark under the car seats gave me the shivers so after putting aside the diplomatic approach I grabbed the back of her neck and pushed her back into the box.

After that, it was quiet. She was just sitting on the cloths with a disapproving face and didn’t move. She did everything she could to fix this, but now it was time to reflect and start adapting to the emerged situation.

The 30 minutes drive home finally ended and we introduced the new family member to my dad. We set up a warm and soft bed for the kitten and started arguing about names. We (she) ended up with “Lina". With that settled, Lina curled up and fall asleep, so we went to bed as well.

This is how the funniest year of my life started.