Human! I choose you!

There are times when you wake up one morning and decide, "I want a pet" or, you have an annoying, snobby, pain in the butt child in your family demanding, "I WANT A PUPPY." Either way, at some point in our lives, there's an animal that walks in and changes our lives from that moment on...and sometimes, it's not even our decision. An animal can choose their owner(or we could be their pets, I've never quite figured out which is which) just the same as we can choose them.

As an example...I'd like to introduce my cat, my pest, my royal pain in the neck, but I couldn't live without her, Reesie.

Reesie was actually born into a litter of kittens by a neighbor about four houses down from my parent's house. I don't really know them all that well. I knew a boy around my age from that house. He was a coworker when I had my first job as a cashier at the grocery store not too far from here...and I never liked him. He drank a lot, smoked a lot, did drugs, you name it, he probably had it in his body. One day at work he came up to me asking if I found his shoe in our backyard because he had lost it.

Anyway...I didn't like him, and I still don't. My family and I were driving down the street one day and we saw the kittens...and this little itty bitty calico hiding behind a mailbox. My dad used to always look at her when we passed by that house saying how much he wished we had a cat like that (he really likes calicos).

A few years passed to what brings me to about two years ago from now. We have two other cats, Timmy and Molly. There's a small maid's room of our house where the cats generally hang out, and there is a back porch that we used to let the two cats out on. Well...one fateful day, my dad's cat Molly got into a fight with another cat outside. Molly is very tiny...her story we'll leave for another day though. She is declawed, so...you can imagine she's not very threatening to an outside cat.

My mother and I had to rush her to the vet...but before we left...that calico cat ran off from underneath our porch. I decided from that day, "I must have that cat." (I really don't like my dad's cat) My parents decided to leave Timmy and Molly inside since there were bigger and badder cats outside, and only let them outside on the other porch where the yard is fenced in. They're too chicken to jump or climb under the fence...and the other cats won't come in since we have two larger dogs that go outside with the cats too. (The cats and dogs get along, luckily)

The calico continued to hang around our house. I started to leave cat treats outside for her when she was at the front door. When I came home from work or classes, she started to meet me at my car door, then "escort" me to the front door. Our family began to call her the house guardian.

This trend continued for a few months. We had a really bad winter around this time, and she was still hanging around the house. I wasn't going to just let her sit outside in the snow and freeze to death, so I did what any animal lover would do...I brought her into the house. Since she didn't get along with our other pets (we had 4 dogs and 2 other cats), she just stayed in my room...which is where she is today.

She runs around outside during the day when it's nice out. She comes in when it snows, when it rains, when it's too hot...whenever she wants to come in, she sits by the door and waits...then she makes a straight beeline up to my bedroom. She hogs my bed, steps on my tablet, knocks (and sometimes breaks) my things onto the floor...yep...typical cat, but I love her so.

She's now been named Reesie, and a permanent member of my family. She found me first, and I have no choice but to put up with her now.