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Broke Wife, Big City
The Adventures
of Kitty “Meow” Cat, III
Written by Kitty Cat
Hello. You probably don’t know me. In fact, there is no reason you
should. My existence is of little importance to most people. Most
people, that is, save one.
And it is for her sake that I would like to share the following story
with you.
Perhaps I should start at the beginning. My name is Kitty Cat. A wholly
unoriginal name, I’ll grant you, but considering I was given my moniker
by a young creature who still occasionally sticks a spoon in her eye,
the name serves its purpose. I am, indeed, a small stuffed kitty cat
toy.
I remember little of my life before the Christmas of 2017. The first
clear memory I have is of being imprisoned in a small cardboard box in
some kind of gargantuan toy prison, my feet and neck bound by
indestructible chains of plastic. The entire lot of us were slowly
being driven mad by an endless loop of what our prison guards called
“sounds of the season.” And from morning until night, we were subjected
to humiliating pokes and prods by chaotic mobs of angry giants and
their leaky offspring.
You can imagine my relief then when one of these giants took pity on me
and orchestrated my escape in a daring plan whereby she distracted the
prison guards using only a piece of green paper and calmly walked out
the door.
Soon thereafter, however, I realized my freedom came at a cost, for I
was quickly put into the possession of her own personal leaky
offspring.
Life hasn’t always been easy for me. I suppose it never is when you are
the beloved toy of a 2-year-old. But I tolerated things like the
high-pitched, screechy voice she uses for me (even though clearly I
sound much more like an off-brand Patrick Stewart) because there is not
much in the way of an alternative for me.
A realization I would soon come to know intimately.
It was a summer day like any other. I awoke in the vise-like grip of my
small human. We played Kitty Cat vs. Batman. We illegally removed her
fresh diaper (although I was a very reluctant accomplice). She mashed
my face into her bowl of Cheerios while repeatedly proclaiming “Kitty
Cat eat. Num Num Num.”
Then it was off to the library, her strapped into the stroller, me
securely by her side with half my head accidentally tucked under her
rear. Like most of our asinine activities, it all went by in a blur of
giggles (hers) and shouts of “dammit, Mae, I said NO!” (her mother’s).
It wasn’t until our walk home that my entire world, small as it was,
was shattered.
I wasn’t sure what was happening at first. Then, all of a sudden, I
knew too well. I was slipping, slipping. I tried to cry out, to cling
to her, my little sticky biped, but then with horror remembered I am
utterly inanimate. Yes, dear readers, “Toy Story” is a falsehood of the
most egregious kind.
I was tumbling, down, down. By the time I could finally orient myself,
the stroller was disappearing over the horizon.
And so I laid there. Under that overpass. Cars careening past.
Pedestrians trudging by on their weary way. No one even bothering to
look my way except for the useless neighborhood birds and squirrels
with their tedious chittering.
I had never felt so alone.
All was lost. I knew it in my non-existent heart. I prayed for death
but it wouldn’t come. Oh, what I would have given to be back in those
chubby arms with their faint whiff of ketchupy peanut butter. That
little girl loved me so much and what did I give her in return?
Nothing.
Nothing but a silent, stitched-on, smirk. Had I neck muscles, I would
have hung my head in shame.
But wait, what was that? In the distance? A glimmer of flannel? Could
it be? No. No, it couldn’t possibly be.
Yet, hope of all hopes, it was. It truly was my girl’s father.
“There are no lost toys on my watch,” I heard the man say in a very
macho voice as he tucked me into his very manly computer purse.
Later I was to overhear that the mother had told the flannel daddy man
about how I was lost and so he had walked the same route we took on his
way home from work. But it was all just background noise to me. For I
was safely back in my love’s arms, being squeezed until I thought my
stuffing would fall out my eyeballs. The smell of old macaroni and
cheese has never smelled so sweet.
So, where do we go from here? For I have seen things. Things no small
toy should see. I have aged much beyond my calendar age of eight months
and have seen firsthand just how frightening of a place the world can
be.
But I have also found my place in it, this scary world. It is by her
side. For if the world is a scary place for me, imagine what it must be
like for her. It is the least I can do, for there is no love quite like
the love of a tiny child for her ratty old stuffed animal, and, from
now on, I shall do my utter best to return that love ten-fold and be
her courage when the world grows just a bit too big.
And I shall do it even when she relentlessly kisses me while eating
pancakes with an obscene amount of syrup.
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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