Sparky Supports Good Causes!

They call me Sparky. That's not my name, but it will do. I'm nine or ten, maybe eleven years old - nobody knows and I've forgotten. I've had some adventures in my time, and maybe one day I will tell about them, but this is the story of how I got my person.

My first people left me when I was a young cat. I don't know why they moved away without me - maybe they lost me the day of the move, maybe they had a family emergency; surely, it wasn't that they did not love me as I am infinitely loveable and I had always been good to them.

For whatever reason, I found myself living alone, in a neighborhood in central Texas where there were lots of lonely, stray cats and a few dogs that roamed around and harassed the cats. There wasn't much to eat except what I could catch (and I learned quickly how to catch things - there just weren't many things to catch and lots of competition) and the odd tidbit thrown in someone's trash. Of course, that was risky as trash is usually rotten and people chased me if they saw me near the bags. I never did understand that - they were throwing the stuff away - what did it matter if I took it?

You might not think it gets cold in Texas - well, it does! That winter, it froze for weeks at a time and I tell you, I was so cold. I huddled in bushes and next to buildings to get warm. I was an outsider, not related to the other cats, so they did not let me hang around.

I'm a long haired cat, which was good because of the cold, but bad because with no one to help me keep my coat nice, and no time to work on it myself with all the cares of just surviving on my paws, I quickly became unkempt and scraggley. People can be so fickle - when I was looking fluffy and nice, everyone wanted to pet me. When I came upon hard times, and started to look messy, and I guess I got that desperate hungry, wild look in my eyes, people chased me - "Shoo, get away" they said. I didn't know what had changed - why were people against me? I didn't know they were afraid of my looks. (Come to think of it, I've heard they treat their own kind the same way when they get scraggley. Maybe everyone should spend some time with twigs in their fur and they would come to appreciate the problem. But back to my story...) I started to think all people were against me. It was a bad time, a lonely time.

I finally found some people who would leave food on the porch. I ate the food and began to spend time in their yard - that way I could get to the food right when it was put out and not have to defend it from other strays. I even let the people touch me, but it hurt when they tried to get the mats and twigs out of my hair so I would not tolerate much petting.

Things started to look up once it got warmer and I met some of the girl cats in the neighborhood and struck up some relationships. This led to some nasty fights with the other males, though; they did not like this new, handsome guy in town moving in on the ladies.

This went on until the next fall - it was getting cool again and I had put on my winter coat. The autumn leaves were falling - and sticking in my hair. I tell you, I really had some impressive mats in my hair now because I had not been brushed in over a year. Those mats had been miserable during the heat but might come in handy for this next winter. I just left them alone - I had more important things to worry about like my next meal.

One day, one of the people kept the back door open and had the food inside the door. I was really tired and it is kind of a blur what happened that day. Maybe I remembered the good times I'd had when I had some people and lived in a house. Maybe I was so hungry I just did not care anymore. I went inside and ate the food, and drank the milk, and I lay down and took a nap. When I woke up, the person was petting me! She had a Brush! The brush felt good, except when it caught on a mat. I really wanted to bite but she was talking nice to me and it was so soothing to be warm, and full, and brushed. She took some scissors and cut the mats out of my hair. I was quite a sight after that - definitely having a bad hair day, but less bad than when the mats and twigs and leaves were there.

From then on, I came to that door every evening and I got to come in, eat, and sleep over night. There were two other cats in the house who stayed in all the time. They were fat and fluffy and lazy and I did not mind them. They acted just as scared of me as the people had when I was scraggley. Really, I wasn't a bad cat - just going through a bad time. Those house cats were not threatening enough to even twitch a tail at. Their silly little skinny tails, all fuzzed up, and their furtive glances were pitiful - they did not know how lucky they were that they did not have to face someone really fierce in the alley. I just ignored them and relaxed in the warmth and safey of the house.

One day, I was chasing a lady-cat and I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings. (You know how one can be blinded by affairs of the heart.) She ran across the street and I followed. Ugh-oh. A car! Barely missed that one. The car stopped and out stepped the person from the house - she called to me: "Sparky, Sparky, come here!" Well, that wasn't my name but I knew she thought it was so I went on over anyway. I got to ride home in a car - I didn't mind too much but I was a little disappointed that I never did get to rendevous with that lady-cat. From then on, I stayed in the house all I wanted.

Not long after that day, my new person (I was claiming her now - you can claim a person once they've named you. The funny thing is, they think they're claiming you!) took me on another car ride. I didn't mind - it was warm in the car and warmth was very important to an alley cat like me. We went to someplace called "the vet". Some other people took me and did an operation called "neutering". I don't want to talk much about the particulars of that procedure as it is of an indelicate nature, but since that day I have lost my interest in the lady-cats.

Remember those fat lazy housecats? The thing is, now I'm one, too. Well, I'm not fat - there's always food to eat, so I only eat when I want to. Lazy? I prefer to call it, retired. I'm a retired alley cat. And it's a good life.