Memento Rosie: A Dedication in 3 Parts to Rose (formerly known as Nightmare). Part I.

I started this post talking about my fourth birthday, and how it must have been a big deal because I got a kitten and my ears pierced, but now that I think about it, I think I got the pierced ears when I was 5. Because I know for sure that I got Rose when I was 4.

I had just read Steven Kellogg's (hilarious, to the 4-year-old eye) book A Rose for Pinkerton, where the unruly Great Dane gets a new friend in the form of a teeny tiny kitten, who decides she wants to be a Great Dane too, while Pinkerton thinks he's a kitten! Well, gosh, you guys, I mean, aren't all kittens adorable and sweet and silly and think they want to be dogs? I decided my kitten's name was going to be Rose, JUST LIKE Pinkerton, oh my goodness!, and we went off to the MSPCA to get my brand-new birthday kittykitty.

She was an itty-bitty, teeny-weeny little ball of black fuzz from the MSPCA. Absolutely ridiculous. I don't remember much about the visit to the Society except that I got a pamphlet from the lady. Which I may have made up. So anyway, we got home, and, well, my adorable little supposed-to-be-like-Pinkerton's-Rose Rose made it very clear that this itsy-bitsy, teensy-weensy wee black little lint ball was full of absolute evil.

Her first decision as commander-in-chief of the Ruin-Isis's-Life program those first weeks (possibly months) was that the Best Hiding Spot In The Whole House (because after all, when you're a tiny, scared-shitless little lint ball with no mommy but a 4-year-old... aren't you feeling the need for a hiding spot yourself?) was under the shelf that stood along the wall perpendicular to the doorway to my room. I mean, if you're approximately the size and color of a dust-bunny under a shelf anyway, that's probably your best bet for camouflage. The camouflage, of course, being being necessary due to Miss Rose's institution of guerilla warfare against my person. Every single time I left my room, I was guaranteed to have a tiny paw reach out and swipe at my legs with with nasty, sharp, pointy claws. This led to my eventual habit of swerving out of my room at top speeds, generally ending in a) running into someone and getting yelled at for it, b) running into something (coatstand, I think, usually) and getting yelled at for it, or c) getting yelled at for running.

As you can imagine, I came to have a bit of a distaste for my birthday present. My mother and I called her "Rose Nightmare" and "Rosie Posie Pudding and Pie, scratched the girls and made them cry" (due to her unfortunate lack of distinction between small female calves entering or exiting my room, or rather, passing in either direction by her Secret Hiding Spot).

I think I was 6 when I came up with a theory exonerating Rose of any blame for her misbehavior: "Maybe," I said to my mother one day in the car, "maybe Rose was really really little? Like just born? And then maybe her mother was outside with all her kitten babies? And then she went to get them some food? And then she got hit by a truck? And then all the babies didn't have a mama anymore? And so they were really scared? And then the people came to get them from the MSPCA? And they weren't very nice to them? So maybe Rose is mad at people because they made trucks? And maybe she's scared we'll be mean to her too? And maybe she misses her mamãe? And it's not our fault but she doesn't know that, so maybe that's why she's mean to me?" I think I remember crying at this point, because the thought of being without a mama, even for an evil little kitten like Rosie Posie, was just too awful to be endured.
I still firmly believe in this exculpatory theory of mine. It allowed me to not completely hate Rose, but rather to feel compassion for her - she was awfully little when we got her, probably a day over the minimum age you could bring a baby like her home, and her life story probably did sound a lot like that. Poor thing.

To be continued.