It turns out I can hear a question 1,205,295 times before I scream, "FINE! DO WHAT YOU WANT!" Not that I was counting the number of times the husband and child asked if we could get another kitten. All those hashmarks in my closet were just my way of keeping track of how annoying the two of them can be.
Answer: VERY annoying.
The thing is that we have pretty much always had three cats, except for that brief time when we didn't because Coal was sick and was enough work in and of himself. I knew we would wind up back at three eventually, so the fact that I managed to delay adding that extra set of legs for as long as I did was sort of miraculous. In fact, the husband tried to suggest we get two kittens from Ali's litter when we got her, but I glared him silent.
Alexis, for her part, has asked for another kitten pretty much every day for the past year. She's been met with things like, "Wait until after Thanksgiving," and "Ask me after Christmas," and "Maybe if you mange to go two months without making me want to curl up in the fetal position and cry." She finally managed to beat me down so that I'd respond with, "FINE! DO WHAT YOU WANT!" after months and months of work.
So we spent the weekend driving from shelter to shelter looking for a kitten to adopt. The were no rules in the game, except that I insisted we get a kitten. Meg is very much so cool and the gang with kittens, but she might decide a grown cat looked like a tasty snack. It wasn't worth the risk.
The only problem with saying that there were no rules is that kids know how to exploit things like that. Alexis decided she didn't just want a kitten, she wanted the ugliest kitten that has ever set foot on this earth. I started calling the thing "Phantom" because, well, look:
Ugliest. Kitten. Ever.
And shoosh, yes it is possible for a kitten to be hideously ugly.
It's hard to tell from the crappy photo, but that thing was the Frankenkitten that only the Phantom of the Opera could love. It was actually Max's sister, and parts of her looked exactly like him. Half of her face was the same orange stripedness. Some spots on her body were perfect replicas of his orange stripey goodness. Her paws were orange and stripey and looked just like socks. The rest of her was black. It truly looked like someone had taken a bunch of kitten puzzles and used a sledgehammer to force them together. Her face was absolutely a replica of the Phantom of the Opera mask.
Creepy. And hideous.
And Alexis loved her.
Fortunately, once I laid down the law and said no ugly kittens were allowed (I'm a horrible human being. I know.), she was quick to decide on Max. It was a good thing, because Max also decided on her. That's to say, he seems to adore her. He follows her all over the house and turns into a pile of purring goo when she pays attention to him.
What Max doesn't like is the bowling ball with legs.
It probably has to do with the fact that Meg sounds like a lawnmower. Max arches his back and turns all poofy anytime Meg enters a room. Of course, a tiny kitten trying to scare away a loud-faced Bulldog with a little fur poofing is HIGH-LARIOUS.
Also HIGH-LARIOUS is the way Cody stalks Max. Cody is all, "Wanny play? How about now? Do you want to play? Will you play with me? Can we play? PLEEASE CAN WE PLAY? LEETT'S PLAAAAAY!"
Max is all, "Uh, go away."
And then there's Switzerland in the whole new kitten thing. Powder is the alpha of the house, a privilege earned the hard way as he is the oldest of the crew. At a whopping 15 years of age, he gets to assert his will in pretty much all situations. His thoughts on Max?
"Whatever."
"I just want his box."