When my husband set off for yet another eons-long stint to a “secret fortress,” so naturally I did what any rational, mildly unhinged woman in a foreign country would do.
I opened Facebook Marketplace, looking for some company.
I was not, for the record, looking for that kind of company.
Instead, I found an ad for “pure-bred” British Shorthair kittens.
Specifically, pedigreed British Shorthair kittens. The listing featured a silver-gray tomcat sunning himself on a marble window ledge like he owned a yacht, alongside a dainty black queen who was presumably his partner in this whole operation. Together, they’d allegedly produced three bargain-priced offspring, at 400 euros each.
The catch was cash-euro and a meetup at a public housing block near the Fritz-Walter soccer stadium in downtown Kaiserslautern.
Did I tell anyone where I was going?
No.
Did I still walk into a Soviet-era high-rise with a suspicious amount of optimism, a wad of euro notes in my pocket, and exactly zero backup plan?
Absolutely.
At the lobby door, a man in his twenties … giving off some serious dungeon vibes, let me in.
I summoned my best German.
“I am here for the tiny cat,” I said. Ich bin hier for die kleine Katze.
He rolled his Maybelline-crusted eyes to the heavens and muttered, “Ja. Mein Mutter,” and motioned for me to follow. So, I did. Into a small creaky elevator. Up to the ninth floor. And down a dim hallway.
Folks, if you ever want to know how to kidnap me, that’s the method. Simply promise me kittens.
Inside the apartment, I was greeted by a woman with a mysterious accent, who introduced herself as Nupriss. Nupriss was a black-market kitten dealer who hailed from Lithuania and had three squirming kittens in a literal baby crib in her living room. From the kitchen, the unmistakable smell of boiling cabbage perfumed the air. On the television, a Russian program blared, complete with a host who seemed to be shouting furiously about either politics, or potatoes.
The son, meanwhile, returned to his corner of the apartment, where several glowing monitors displayed cascading lines of green text. Strings of computer code, ones and zeroes, and other gibberish danced across the screen like something straight out of The Matrix. Was he hacking into NATO? Running a cryptocurrency empire? Writing fanfiction in binary? I’ll never know.
Unconcerned that her son was possibly destabilizing international defense systems, Nupriss waved me closer and encouraged me to pick my kitten.
One scrawny runt with jet-black fur clawed over his siblings – a pudgy gray one we’d eventually call “Fat Brother” and a smaller tabby, “Lil Sis”, and latched himself to my hand like it was a life raft. The woman smiled.
“Ah, this little one, Vasja. He likes you. You have good heart.”
I beamed at the compliment.
“You pay me now.”
I did.
I departed 400 euros lighter on a handshake deal that I’d return when “Vasja” was weaned at 12 weeks, eating solid food, and using a litter box.
On a random Friday afternoon seven weeks later, with my husband glaring at me from the couch, Nupriss called.
“Congratulations to you!” she said. “Vasja is ready for his home, you come pick him now.”
“It’s only week eight!” my husband hissed, but it was too late. Nupriss had heard him.
“Oh, how Vasja howls for you,” she said. “His brother and sister have gone to their homes, now Vasja is all alone and oh, how he cries!”
Two hours later after fighting a German traffic jam, I introduced a tiny bewildered kitten to his new home.
*
The first problem came within an hour at mealtime. Vasja would not eat cat food. Not wet food, not dry food, not anything labeled “for kittens.” Out of desperation, I texted the Lithuanian. “Nupriss. What does this cat eat?”
Her reply was not what I expected.
“He just eats what I eat. Sausage. Cream. Cheese. Half the tuna can. Also chicken. Little Vasja loves the chicken. Then after dinners, sometime in early morning, he runs like the Wild Wentz.”
“Vasja” I had learned, was a term of endearment that roughly meant “little one” in Russian.
It also apparently meant that he was raised on deli meats in a lawless household.
With a tiny kitten pawing pitifully at our socks and screeching, we did what any reasonable pet parents would do. My husband raced to the German grocery store Edeka, and came back with an armful of assorted sausages and cheeses.
It worked. Vasja inhaled the charcuterie board like a hobo on a ham sandwich. But our victory would be short-lived.
Forty-eight hours passed, but Vasja still had not taken, what my husband Andy affectionately called, “a grumper.” Herr Google cautioned that kittens should have daily bowel movements and warned of a potential intestinal blockage, which if left untreated, would be deadly.
Fearing the worst, I brought him to an emergency veterinarian who looked at me the way you might look at people who feed caviar to infants. After a brief examination, and a scolding that our kitten was too young, and also should not be eating sausage, she announced that Vasja’s plumbing seemed just fine. He was simply clogged with wurst.
Then, without warning, she produced what looked suspiciously like a small crochet hook, inserted it into Vasja’s tiny little butthole and performed a human-assisted bowel intervention.
“It poop!” she announced triumphantly, holding up a metal wand with proof. I clapped like a proud parent watching her child’s first Kindergarten recital. She sent me home with a strict diet plan, deworming medication (disguised in Cheez-Whiz, because otherwise Vasja wouldn’t touch it), and a growing suspicion that our new pet was not, in fact, a purebred British Shorthair. But rather some form of carnivorous Eastern European goblin.
We decided to name him Tiki, after the tropical vacations we’d no longer be able to afford.
*
For the next two weeks, Tiki rebuffed nearly all efforts to wean him onto actual cat food. We mixed his special meat paste that we’d gotten from the vet, with chicken, but Tiki simply nosed around it, strategically pulling out the chicken bits. We tried combo after combo. And each one met with failure.
One morning, we found a tiny tooth by Tiki’s water bowl and realized he was teething, so our search for the perfect cat food was abandoned in favor of any form of soft kibble that this animal might eat. Which is how we finally landed on Moist & Meaty shredded soft dog food. Tiki was finally eating kibble, albeit canine, not feline – but at this point, we chalked it up as a win.
Because it’s our household, it wasn’t long before we realized Moist & Meaty came with its own unexpected side effect. Tiki’s paws began to smell like Fritos. And because Tiki insisted on sleeping on top of my head, his little toe beans grasping fistfuls of my hair, I spent every night inhaling the scent of corn chips and bad decisions.
For the next few months, Tiki settled into his true form: an agent of chaos with Big Runt energy. He burrowed into the warm dishwasher. He hopped into the cool recesses of our low-slung German toilet to rest in its tranquil waters. He stole potatoes from the countertop and batted them around like toy mice. He disappeared under the couch for hours at a time, leading us to believe on one occasion that he’d escaped and was running wild through Germany. He reappeared just as I hit print for a stack of “Have You Seen Him” lost and found posters to go out and confetti the neighborhood light poles.
One Sunday after Tiki had shattered a gallon-sized jar of pickles across the kitchen tiled floor, my husband Andy sat me down for a confessional. “You know I’ve been reading up on the personality traits of British Shorthairs. I don’t think he’s purebred.”
“Hush!” I said. “He’ll hear you, and you’ll give that baby a complex!”
But Andy remained unconvinced. “He doesn’t speak English! Besides, I’m pretty sure Nupriss googled ‘fancy cat’, and copied the first picture she found on the internet. I guarantee if you asked her, where did you find this cat? She’d say, “We find him in street. He drink from puddle, how you say – the color of mud. But he ok, he healthy!”
I wish I could tell you that Tiki finally calmed down, and grew fat and lazy, and slept 18 hours a day in his own cat bed or in a sunny square on the living room carpet. Like the calm, British-bred gentleman he supposedly was.
But like I said, because it’s our household and the universe has a wicked sense of humor, our Frito-toed fur demon, Tiki Fritz-Walter Adams, was just getting started.
I opened Facebook Marketplace, looking for some company.
I was not, for the record, looking for that kind of company.
Instead, I found an ad for “pure-bred” British Shorthair kittens.
Specifically, pedigreed British Shorthair kittens. The listing featured a silver-gray tomcat sunning himself on a marble window ledge like he owned a yacht, alongside a dainty black queen who was presumably his partner in this whole operation. Together, they’d allegedly produced three bargain-priced offspring, at 400 euros each.
The catch was cash-euro and a meetup at a public housing block near the Fritz-Walter soccer stadium in downtown Kaiserslautern.
Did I tell anyone where I was going?
No.
Did I still walk into a Soviet-era high-rise with a suspicious amount of optimism, a wad of euro notes in my pocket, and exactly zero backup plan?
Absolutely.
At the lobby door, a man in his twenties … giving off some serious dungeon vibes, let me in.
I summoned my best German.
“I am here for the tiny cat,” I said. Ich bin hier for die kleine Katze.
He rolled his Maybelline-crusted eyes to the heavens and muttered, “Ja. Mein Mutter,” and motioned for me to follow. So, I did. Into a small creaky elevator. Up to the ninth floor. And down a dim hallway.
Folks, if you ever want to know how to kidnap me, that’s the method. Simply promise me kittens.
Inside the apartment, I was greeted by a woman with a mysterious accent, who introduced herself as Nupriss. Nupriss was a black-market kitten dealer who hailed from Lithuania and had three squirming kittens in a literal baby crib in her living room. From the kitchen, the unmistakable smell of boiling cabbage perfumed the air. On the television, a Russian program blared, complete with a host who seemed to be shouting furiously about either politics, or potatoes.
The son, meanwhile, returned to his corner of the apartment, where several glowing monitors displayed cascading lines of green text. Strings of computer code, ones and zeroes, and other gibberish danced across the screen like something straight out of The Matrix. Was he hacking into NATO? Running a cryptocurrency empire? Writing fanfiction in binary? I’ll never know.
Unconcerned that her son was possibly destabilizing international defense systems, Nupriss waved me closer and encouraged me to pick my kitten.
One scrawny runt with jet-black fur clawed over his siblings – a pudgy gray one we’d eventually call “Fat Brother” and a smaller tabby, “Lil Sis”, and latched himself to my hand like it was a life raft. The woman smiled.
“Ah, this little one, Vasja. He likes you. You have good heart.”
I beamed at the compliment.
“You pay me now.”
I did.
I departed 400 euros lighter on a handshake deal that I’d return when “Vasja” was weaned at 12 weeks, eating solid food, and using a litter box.
On a random Friday afternoon seven weeks later, with my husband glaring at me from the couch, Nupriss called.
“Congratulations to you!” she said. “Vasja is ready for his home, you come pick him now.”
“It’s only week eight!” my husband hissed, but it was too late. Nupriss had heard him.
“Oh, how Vasja howls for you,” she said. “His brother and sister have gone to their homes, now Vasja is all alone and oh, how he cries!”
Two hours later after fighting a German traffic jam, I introduced a tiny bewildered kitten to his new home.
*
The first problem came within an hour at mealtime. Vasja would not eat cat food. Not wet food, not dry food, not anything labeled “for kittens.” Out of desperation, I texted the Lithuanian. “Nupriss. What does this cat eat?”
Her reply was not what I expected.
“He just eats what I eat. Sausage. Cream. Cheese. Half the tuna can. Also chicken. Little Vasja loves the chicken. Then after dinners, sometime in early morning, he runs like the Wild Wentz.”
“Vasja” I had learned, was a term of endearment that roughly meant “little one” in Russian.
It also apparently meant that he was raised on deli meats in a lawless household.
With a tiny kitten pawing pitifully at our socks and screeching, we did what any reasonable pet parents would do. My husband raced to the German grocery store Edeka, and came back with an armful of assorted sausages and cheeses.
It worked. Vasja inhaled the charcuterie board like a hobo on a ham sandwich. But our victory would be short-lived.
Forty-eight hours passed, but Vasja still had not taken, what my husband Andy affectionately called, “a grumper.” Herr Google cautioned that kittens should have daily bowel movements and warned of a potential intestinal blockage, which if left untreated, would be deadly.
Fearing the worst, I brought him to an emergency veterinarian who looked at me the way you might look at people who feed caviar to infants. After a brief examination, and a scolding that our kitten was too young, and also should not be eating sausage, she announced that Vasja’s plumbing seemed just fine. He was simply clogged with wurst.
Then, without warning, she produced what looked suspiciously like a small crochet hook, inserted it into Vasja’s tiny little butthole and performed a human-assisted bowel intervention.
“It poop!” she announced triumphantly, holding up a metal wand with proof. I clapped like a proud parent watching her child’s first Kindergarten recital. She sent me home with a strict diet plan, deworming medication (disguised in Cheez-Whiz, because otherwise Vasja wouldn’t touch it), and a growing suspicion that our new pet was not, in fact, a purebred British Shorthair. But rather some form of carnivorous Eastern European goblin.
We decided to name him Tiki, after the tropical vacations we’d no longer be able to afford.
*
For the next two weeks, Tiki rebuffed nearly all efforts to wean him onto actual cat food. We mixed his special meat paste that we’d gotten from the vet, with chicken, but Tiki simply nosed around it, strategically pulling out the chicken bits. We tried combo after combo. And each one met with failure.
One morning, we found a tiny tooth by Tiki’s water bowl and realized he was teething, so our search for the perfect cat food was abandoned in favor of any form of soft kibble that this animal might eat. Which is how we finally landed on Moist & Meaty shredded soft dog food. Tiki was finally eating kibble, albeit canine, not feline – but at this point, we chalked it up as a win.
Because it’s our household, it wasn’t long before we realized Moist & Meaty came with its own unexpected side effect. Tiki’s paws began to smell like Fritos. And because Tiki insisted on sleeping on top of my head, his little toe beans grasping fistfuls of my hair, I spent every night inhaling the scent of corn chips and bad decisions.
For the next few months, Tiki settled into his true form: an agent of chaos with Big Runt energy. He burrowed into the warm dishwasher. He hopped into the cool recesses of our low-slung German toilet to rest in its tranquil waters. He stole potatoes from the countertop and batted them around like toy mice. He disappeared under the couch for hours at a time, leading us to believe on one occasion that he’d escaped and was running wild through Germany. He reappeared just as I hit print for a stack of “Have You Seen Him” lost and found posters to go out and confetti the neighborhood light poles.
One Sunday after Tiki had shattered a gallon-sized jar of pickles across the kitchen tiled floor, my husband Andy sat me down for a confessional. “You know I’ve been reading up on the personality traits of British Shorthairs. I don’t think he’s purebred.”
“Hush!” I said. “He’ll hear you, and you’ll give that baby a complex!”
But Andy remained unconvinced. “He doesn’t speak English! Besides, I’m pretty sure Nupriss googled ‘fancy cat’, and copied the first picture she found on the internet. I guarantee if you asked her, where did you find this cat? She’d say, “We find him in street. He drink from puddle, how you say – the color of mud. But he ok, he healthy!”
I wish I could tell you that Tiki finally calmed down, and grew fat and lazy, and slept 18 hours a day in his own cat bed or in a sunny square on the living room carpet. Like the calm, British-bred gentleman he supposedly was.
But like I said, because it’s our household and the universe has a wicked sense of humor, our Frito-toed fur demon, Tiki Fritz-Walter Adams, was just getting started.