Last week three kittens were brought into my foster care for rehab. I think I'm a pretty patient cat lady, and I've seen many scared, angry, and aggressive animals. They say after twelve weeks or so, the chances of domesticating a feral kitten sharply decrease. Well I now have the video to prove it.

This is Little Shit. He didn't have a name until this weekend, and boy, did he earn it. He two siblings were also scared and shy, but they lack the intense maniacal genius that this guy has. Everyone was being housed loose in our little bathroom. The kittens would hide in their crate mostly. Little Shit hissed and growled and nipped at anyone who went into the bathroom. Each night I'd hear wailing and crashing of food bowls. Around 4am someone would be throwing themselves against the wall. In the morning there would be litter and water strewn around, towels on the floor, and rips in the shower curtain. I said to $hClean!, "Let's give him a few days. Maybe he will come around."

$hClean! would spend time in the bathroom trying to socialize the kittens, and LS would literally bite the hand that fed him. Luckily we've learned to wear leather gloves in cases of angry animals. Usually animals will chill out when you leave them alone, but this kitten wreaked havoc with or without our provoking presence.

Enter Friday morning. $hClean! and I leave for work. We work. We come home. I open the door and walk into one solid inch of water on the kitchen floor. WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUU... open the door to the bathroom and see towels on the floor, and IN THE SINK. The faucet is running on full blast. I run down to the basement, and the water is pouring from the ceiling. There is another inch of water. There is a waterfall cascading from the window sills and covering EVERYTHING. Guitars. Pianos. Computer. Recording equipment. Teaching materials. Books. Canvases. Boxes of albums. Basically my entire means of how I make a living is either in a pool of water or being rained on.

This kitten had jumped onto the top shelf in the bathroom, knocked the towels into the sink, clogged the drain, and SOMEHOW, SOMEHOW turned on the faucet full blast. All of this. No thumbs.

We quickly ran to save the instruments and electronics. All the towels we owned were thrown on the ground. It took hours of sopping and wringing the cold water just to get the water level down to zero upstairs and downstairs. The cats were all hiding either in the bathtub or on higher ground. I was crying and freaking out. I've discovered I'm not the person you want to be relying on in an emergency. I feel all the feels and cannot be level headed until I've had a good panic attack. Thankfully $hClean! is the man to be with in an emergency. He jumps into action without thought of the things that are ruined or the patina of litter sludge all over the floor or the fact that it is fifteen degrees outside and HOW WILL THINGS DRY WE DON'T HAVE LAUNDRY THE WORLD IS OVER. This is how my mind works.

Well two days later, I've felt all the feels, and I can be level headed. I know what really matters is that no kitties were hurt. No people were hurt. The instruments appear to be ok. I haven't had time to plug everything in and assess the damage. I'm just going to let things keep drying and hope for the best. In the meantime, we are just going to have to accept the fact that not every kitten can be domesticated. He is living in a cage in the bathroom right now, and he actually seems calmer in there. Next week he can be spayed, ear tipped, and released back to his home in the wilds of Trenton NJ.

I love fostering and helping animals. I even love Little Shit. From afar. With a glove on when I change his food dishes. He is an animal, more wild that we can handle. It's not his fault, we took him out of his home and tried to force him to see how awesome we are. There are limited foster families out there, and tons of kittens. We need to put our energies into socializing the shy, the fearful, the hissy, the motherless, and the sick. I learned long ago I cannot save every kitten. I can give it a good chance at life, even if that life isn't going to be in someone's home. After all is clean and dry, at least I will have his balls.

Little Shit's little sister who is thriving and ready for adoption next week!

side note: If anyone would like to buy a t-shirt from my store, they are all freshly laundered, pre-shrunk, folded, and inventoried.