After a crushing defeat on the IM football field on Friday night (after which a crazy game of tackle four-on-four was played on the sidelines), I came home somewhat tired, fairly scraped and bruised, and worn out. Little did I know that one of my friends had the diabolical plan of surprising me with a little kitty cat that I could call my very own-ish. Everyone, I’d like you to meet River.

While the surprise gatito was a very pleasant one, it was still a very unexpected one. Little River, who was not named until late last night, had come to us with an ample supply of food, but no litter was present in the housewarming package. This was no problem, as we had the idea to place her in a relatively small cardboard box with towels and soft things at the bottom to serve as a temporary home. As it turns out, this was a bad idea. Little River went meow, meeeow, meowmeow for a solid ten minutes before the inner-softy in me gave out, took her out of the box, and placed her in my room. As I did this, I tried to kitten-proof my room as well as I could at 6:00am.

It was at this point that I realized that absolutely no bathroom-mechanism was present for River to make use of. So, after taking some advice from a far more experienced kitten-raising friend, I gave River some milk to lap up while I went in the process of securing a temporary litter box. I eventually found a fairly shallow and well-sized cardboard box cover to use. Now, I urge you, do your best to imagine a pajama-bottomed, grey t-shirted college student running around his front yard barefoot while trying to shovel up dirt from the ground, and picking out anything that might have a negative effect on River’s pink, itty-bitty food pad things. Eventually I realized that there was a big mound of dirt that had been dug up a few days ago to make way for some fresh sidewalk cement (it was a sign, of course), so I shoveled a decent amount into my makeshift litter-box, cleaned out any rocks or sticks, and made the trek back inside to my room. I put little River into the box — just so she knew it was there — and lo and behold, she went to the bathroom. I breathed a very, very hefty sigh of relief, and played with her a bit before finally snuggling down in bed, with little River curled up in a ball on my bed, right near my pillow. I was able to fall asleep listening to the purr of a brand new kitten. It was pretty much one of the happiest moments ever. Even if it was at 7:00am.

Of course, then little River decided to wake me up every forty-five minutes to frolic and play — eventually ending in my waking up a mere three hours after falling asleep. Still well worth it. Today River got to help me in World of Warcraft, as I had started a new character (after little more than a year of not playing) at the urging of a few close friends.

Then, while playing, I saw my friend walk through the door of my room, while River was having a fairly frantic playtime with an empty medicine bottle, with a fairly large bulge in his coat. It was at this point that I realized what that bulge was:

Now if only I could get River and Grey Cat (she is, as of now, unnamed and sleeping behind me on my bed) to spend more than five minutes together where they are not fighting or sleeping. Let me tell you, it’s a task.