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I Bought a $300 Plane Ticket for a Cat
Our cats are a drain on our finances, but I love them anyway.
We have three cats. Freckles, Scratchy, and Oliver Twit, ages 18, 15, and 4. The dynamic trio. Two old ladies and a psycho-kitty. (An aside to those who think three cats is three too many: we once had SEVEN of them. I was admittedly walking the line on becoming the Crazy Cat Lady.)
My cats are family: equal parts loveable and maddening. The idea of losing any of them — Freckles in particular — gives me an old-fashioned case of the vapors. Tears threaten, my chest tightens, and my heart races.
I once bought a $300 plane ticket for one of them.
Meet the Trio
Freckles, aka Freck-a-Licious, sleeps by my head. She won’t get on the bed unless I’m in it, but once I’ve settled, she joins me. Her relentless insistence that I give her kitty scratches can be annoying, but her purring is preferable to my husband’s snoring; I never have to fight the urge to smack her with a pillow. Freckles adopted me: she follows me from room to room, a little four-pawed supervisor making sure I stay out of trouble.
At eighteen years old, Freckles is a little crunchy. She’s no longer flexible enough for complete self-care, so her calico fur is a tiny bit grimy and…