death cab for cutie(s)

If you don't like sad stuff, instead of reading this post you may click on this link.

If you're still here, it's on you.

There was a stray cat that took up residence in our garage. At the time it was a real mess -- I could never catch her when she decided to crawl behind the junk.

Then one day I picked up a crumpled-up blanket and a bunch of newborn kittens fell out.

Since we are soft-hearted, I made them a bed (a towel in a box) and gave her some food. She crawled in an nursed them. It was sweet.

Except then the next night I went downstairs and she was taking her kittens out of the box and shaking them and leaving them on the cold garage floor.

Two of them were dead, one was missing, and three were still alive. I put the three back in the bed but she wouldn't have anything else to do with them. By the next day they were crying constantly from hunger.

I figured it was more merciful to put them to sleep than let them starve to death, so I put them in a box and hooked it up to the exhaust pipe on my car. I ran it for about a half an hour. Then I opened up the box.

One of the three was dead. The other two were hot and sweaty, but other than that you never saw a happier pair of kittens. They were crawling around on each other like this was the best thing they'd ever experienced.

I think at that point I chickened out and called the Humane Society, who came and picked them up. I'm sure they gassed them later, but I'm guessing they were more successful at it.

The missing kitten turned up in my hockey bag two weeks later. (No, Mom, he was not miraculously alive.)

I didn't say you wanted to know about this.