A Kitty's Tale

It’s time for a little fun, aka my annual acrostic story for your reading enjoyment. (To refresh your memory, an acrostic story is twenty-six sentences long, each starting with the next letter of the alphabet, in order.) This year’s requirement was to start with the words, “Always curious…”

My story did not win, but it did receive an honorable mention. I’m happy to share it with you here.

Always curious, Xerox stuck her nose into the empty cereal box I’d placed on the kitchen floor for her. Before I could count to three, her entire body had disappeared inside, and as I rushed around with my morning coffee, the cereal box eventually stopped moving and began emitting a soft purring sound. Cats are hilarious, and Xerox—so named because she was an exact duplicate of her mother—had me smitten from the moment my friend Kathy introduced her to me three months ago.

Distracted by my assignment to write a good-news story about a local business, I grabbed my bag and headed off to work, hollering “goodbye Hon, have a good day” over my shoulder to my husband Quinn.

Evening had arrived by the time I returned, exhausted and still with no story to write. For once, couldn’t one of our local businesses impress me with a little “above and beyond” service?

“Great meal, Hon,” I said absent-mindedly as I finished stacking dishes in the dishwasher. “Hey, where’s Xerox? I haven’t seen her since I got home.”

Jingling her favorite mouse toy with the little bell around its neck, I turned toward the spot where I’d left the cereal box that morning.

“Kitty, kitty, kitty! Last time I saw her, she was sleeping in that—”

My cereal box was gone, and my husband’s face was suddenly the color of the concrete sidewalk.

“No. Oh no. Please don’t say it.” Quinn added two words that confirmed my worst fear. “RECYCLING DAY!”

Shouting for me to follow, Quinn ran through the back door and around to the curb where he’d wheeled out our recycling bin—complete with the cereal box—several hours earlier. The very idea that he could possibly have tossed our darling Xerox inside was too horrible for words!

“Unusual that you didn’t find the empty cereal box a tad on the heavy side, don’t you think?” Vindication was already forming in my heart as sarcasm dripped from my lips. “What on earth were you thinking? Xerox will be long gone by now!”

“You would think so, but look at this,” Quinn chuckled as he reached into the deep bin and pulled out the meowing kitten.

Zeus’s Zero-waste Recycling Company had provided my good-news story by taking everything else and leaving in the bottom of the bin a small bowl of water, a scrap of fabric, and an unruffled kitten who looked up at me like she’d planned the whole event solely for my benefit.