A Super Idea

A friend of mine is thinking about getting a kitten for her 8-year-old son. She sent a mass email to everyone in her address book looking for anyone who knew of an impending litter. This got me thinking.

My first thought was, “A kitten? Why the hell does an 8-year old boy want a kitten? He should be asking for a dragon or a flamethrower or a swamp in the backyard!” A kitten? OK. Do I know of anyone about to have kittens? Real kittens, not the kind of metaphorical kittens I have when freaking out about something of no consequence. No, I don’t. But wait!

Both of the Beans are very vocal little creatures. They love the sounds of their own voices. One of the Beans in particular has consistently explored the furthest reaches of her vocal abilities and, in fact, frequently sounds considerably like a demented kitten herself. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be a good idea for this little boy to experience what a kittened life would be like first? We could put the Bean under his bed all night and he could see what it was like to listen to demented-kitten yowling all night for hours on end.” Granted, the Bean wears a diaper that has to be changed while a kitten doesn’t, but we could just leave Bean’s diaper off and she could make a mess on the kid’s floor or the kid’s bed or the kid’s pillow or wherever she happened to be, just like a kitten. And he could clean it up in the middle of the night, just like he’d have to do with a real kitten. Then, maybe he’d rethink the whole kitten thing.

Then I realized that I’m a pretty demented person for thinking such a thing.

Then I started thinking that maybe Friend could talk her son into TWO kittens. Then I could maybe get a decent night’s sleep and maybe wake up a little less demented myself.