“Wait. What is that? Slow down.”

Sitting in the passenger seat of my sister’s car, I grabbed the dashboard and leaned forward, trying to peer over the hood.

“No, seriously. Slow down. I think there’s an animal in the middle of the road.”

My sister took her foot of the gas pedal, braking lightly. “Where?”

“There. See it? Up there, right in the middle of the road.”

We were on a back road of the tiny town of Taft. There wasn’t much to see – just an old, deserted building, an abandoned lot, and there, crouched in a tiny lump in the middle of the road…. a kitten.

The car slowed to a crawl, and eventually came to a complete halt, about ten feet from the tiny ball of fur.

“Oooooooooooh,” we breathed out simultaneously, starting at the bedraggled, miserable little animal.

“Why won’t it move? It’s just sitting there!”

“Is it alive?”

“It’s so tiny!”

“Ooooh, poor little thing!”

My sister gave a tiny, experimental little honk, but the kitten stayed there, trembling and immobile.

“We could drive around it…..?” My voice trailed off, lacking conviction.

“But it’s so tiny…” breathed my sister. “We can’t just leave it….”

“But what can we do with it?” At the time I was living with my mom, who was a self-proclaimed cat hater. There was no way I could show up with a half-starved kitten, no matter how tiny it was.

My sister wasn’t in a much better position. In the back seat of her car my nephew slept on, completely oblivious. He was barely three weeks old, and with a rambunctious two year old back at the house, Brandie didn’t exactly have much time on her hands.

“Maybe we can find it a home….?”

“Yeah…?”

We both stared at each, knowing we didn’t have the time, energy, or finances to deal with a kitten at the moment.

But there was a kitten.  In the middle of the road.

With a heavy sigh, I slipped off my seatbelt and cracked the door to the car.  “I’ll go get it….?”  The door buzzer  dinged in an annoying rhythm as I waited for Brandie to tell me not to go.

“Okay,” said Brandie, shifting into park and flipping on her hazard lights.

Sigh.  So much for being older and wiser.

The closer I got to the kitten, the tinier it became.  It looked like it couldn’t have been more than three weeks old.  As I approached it, it hissed faintly, and took two or three steps forward before freezing again.

“Awwwww, little one, it’s okay.”  Reaching down, I snagged it by the scruff of its neck, and cuddled it against my body.  The kitten was an indeterminate shade of mottled grey – it was hard to tell what color it was supposed to be, with all that dirt.  As I pressed the kitten against my shirt, I winced as I felt its ribs, hipbones, and shoulder blades popping out against its thinly stretched skin.  It was starving to death.  Poor little thing.

I walked back to the car, kitten still cuddled close against my chest.

“It’s so small!”  Brandie leaned forward to look at it, the kitten staring up at her glassily, lips pulled back in a forced smile as I maintained a tight grip on its scruff.

“I know.  It’s hard to say how old it is.  What do you think?”

Brandie glanced at it.  “Well.. size-wise it looks younger than a month…. but I dunno….” she cocked her head, taking it in.  “It might just be smaller from malnutrition.”

“Good point.  Let’s get it home and get it cleaned up,” I said, releasing the scruff of its neck as I reached around for my seat belt.

Released from the catatonic spell of being carried, the kitten woke up.  It took one look me, Brandie, the car, the strangeness………. and realized it was about to die.

“MREEEOEOOWOWOWOWOLWLWLWL!” With an eerie sound somewhere between a scream and a growl, the kitten leaped off my lap, flying towards the back seat with the sleeping newborn.  I immediately reassessed my judgement of its age from about 3 weeks to a pathetically malnourished 10-12 weeks.

“Get it! Get it!” screeched Brandie, kitten love being replaced by protective maternal instinct.

I lunged in my chair and managed to grab it around its middle mid-leap.

The kitten, upon feeling my hand around its stomach, twisted agilely around and sank its teeth into deep into my knuckle.

With a yelp I flipped my hand,  and the kitten went sailing onto the floorboards by my feet.

“MRREEEOEOOWOWOWOWLLLLLLLLL!!!!!”  For such a tiny creature it had a surprisingly loud growl.  It crouched, terrorized, fur on end, large eyes slitted in hate as it growled, hissed, and spit at me.    It looked like a bedraggled, filthy demon from the underworld. 

“Becky, get it!” said Brandie, her arms stretched out in a flimsy attempt to act as a barrier between Demon Kitten and the newborn in the back seat.

“I’m trying,” I said, trying to find a way to grab the kitten without losing a finger.  

“MROWOWLWLWEATYOURSOULMROWL,” moaned Demon Kitten.

“GET HIM!” hissed Brandie.

“I’M TRYING!”

With a lunge I managed to snag the kitten behind its neck, capturing it and freezing it by grabbing its scruff.  Unfortunately, in the split second between catching and immobilizing it, it managed to twist around and sink its teeth into my left hand, and latch on with all four sets of claws.

I now had a dirty Demon Kitten “stuck” in a permanent  attack position on my left hands.  It may have been my imagination, but I swear I could feel the germs, bacteria, and rabies seeping into me from its dirty little teeth.

The kitten glared up at me, frozen mid-snarl.

“MRRROWWWWLLLLWLWLWHATEYOUHATEYOUMRRRRLW” it growled, deep in its chest.

“OW!” I tried to wiggle my hand free, but it just pushed its teeth deeper.  I tried relaxing my grip on its scruff so I could free my hand, but in that brief moment of relaxation Demon Kitten just doubled its aggression and sank its teeth and claws deeper. “OWWWW!”  This was a life or death struggle, and Demon Kitten wasn’t going down without a fight.

“Do you have it?” Brandie asked anxiously.

“MRRRRROWL….”

“Yeah,” I gritted out between clenched teeth.  “But it’s biting me.”

 “GGRMRMROOOOWWWLWLLLLL…”

“Well, make it stop!”

“MRRROOWWWWLLLLDIEDIEDIEMRRROWLLLL…”

“I’m trying!”

“Seriously, get your hand out of its mouth!  What if it has rabies?”

“MMRRRRLLLLLEATYOURFLESHMMMMRRROOWWWLL…”

“I’M TRYING!  IT’S NOT LIKE I HAVE MY HAND IN THERE ON PURPOSE!”

 It took a lot of maneuvering, a few cuss words, quite a bit of blood, but I was finally able to extricate my hand from Demon Kitten’s mouth.  The baby in the back seat never woke up.  We managed to get the kitten home and in a rescue kennel.

I lucked out in that I didn’t get an infection from its mouth, and the Animal Shelter monitored Demon Kitten to make sure it didn’t have rabies.

Demon Kitten had a month of endless food, fresh water, and safety at the Animal Shelter before it was humanely put down.  Hey, I know that’s a terrible end to a sad little life, but it’s a better end than literally starving to death or being eaten by a coyote, which were its other two options.  With cages full of healthy, friendly, adorable kittens being put down do to lack of homes, it didn’t make sense to try to rehabilitate an older, feral kitten.   Spay and neuter, people.  Spay and neuter. 

And that, my dear friends, was the last time I rescued a feral cat off the side of the road. 

Kids.

Sometimes they’re sweet.

Sometimes they’re adorable.

Sometimes you wish you were a Velociraptor so you could grab them with your big angry toe claw, flip them into your mouth, and eat them.

I was so excited to play Guess That DragonMonkey.  “It’s going to be a blast, Bean!” I said excitedly.  “Every single day, I’ll post a new clue.  Having a new post every day will generate excitement, and I’ll get a lot of response.  Then, after a week of counting down, I’ll do the big reveal!”

“That’ll be fun,” said the Bean in a distracted fashion, nose-deep in an accounting textbook.

“No, really, it’s going to be awesome!”

“I’m sure it will be.”

“Can’t you just see him?  He’ll be grinning at the camera, showing off all his cuteness…. Maybe I’ll have him wear his cute fedora hat for each of the videos…. I wonder what I should have him say?  Maybe a new word every day? Maybe I can have him hold a sign with a clue?  Maybe I can get him to talk a little about the secret, and give clues that way?  Maybe…”

And so on, and so on.  I had the best of plans.  The first clue would come out on Monday.  I’d post a clue a day, with the grand finale on Friday, choose through all the winners over the weekend, and make the big announcement on the 6th.

Monday came.

And went.

Without a post.

Whoops.

On Tuesday everyone in the house was sick.  I figured nobody needed to see dripping, snotty noses so I used a practice video that I made about two months ago and did my post.

I actually got a lot of responses – it was a lot of fun.

In fact, the responses were so fun, that now I’m actually a little bit disappointed by what my news actually is.  Here is your one and only clue:

We’re not getting a pony.  🙁

Trust me:  The day I get back into owning horses instead of borrowing other people’s horses, you will all know about it.  I won’t bother with secret little videos and guessing games.  It will probably just be a picture of a horse, followed by a bunch of   “WHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!  HORSE!!!!!!!!!!!!  HORSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”, and maybe another picture of the horse. 

Anyways, Wednesday night rolled around and I pulled out my phone, ready to video tape the next installment.

“DragonMonkey, say ‘blahblah’.” (< — Hah.  You thought I was going to make a mistake and accidentally spill the beans, didn't you?)

“NO.”

“DragonMonkey, seriously, quit messing around.  Here, look at the camera.”

“Wanna see!  Give me!  Wanna see!”  He twisted up from the couch, lunging for my phone.

“NO.  Don’t touch.  Just look at it.  Say ‘blahblah’.”

He stared at me moodily.  “No.”

“Look, I’ve had a really long day.  I know you’re in a bad mood, but so am I.  Let’s just get this over with.  Just say ‘blahblah’, and I’ll go finish dinner.”

“NO.”

“DragonMonkey,”  I snapped, “I”m not asking.  I’m telling you.  SAY ‘BLAHBLAH’.”  I glared at him, camera waiting, ready to capture the cuteness.

“NO.”

“YES.”

“NO!!! NO!!!! NO!!!!”  He threw himself down melodramatically on the couch., thrashing in anguish. 

“Sit up right now, young man!  You sit up, face this camera, and you say ‘blahblah!”

“NO!  I hate blahblah!  HATE BLAHBLAH!  HATE BLAHBLAH!”  He burst into hysterical tears, flopping about on the couch like a dying fish.

“FINE.”  I shoved the phone in my pocket, annoyed at myself for the way I handled the situation.  The post could just wait until tomorrow.

The next day:

“DragonMonkey!  Gotcha!”  I  swooped him up, tickling him as he twisted about, squealing with laughter.  Once again I’d come home from work to find him in a terrible mood.  I’d been chasing after him for the last thirty minutes, trying to tickle it out of him.

“Hahahahahahahahaahaha!  More tickle!  More!  You can’t get me, Mama!”  He wiggled out of my grasp and danced impatiently, just out of my reach.

I leaned on the couch, panting.  This was exhausting.  “Hold on a second, DM.  Mama’s out of breath.”

The smile slipped from his face immediately, and his eyebrows lowered ominously.  “No.  No ‘hold on’.  Come get me,” he demanded.

“DragonMonkey, wait.”

And that’s all it took.

“Noooo!”  he screeched, throwing himself onto the floor.  “Nooo wait!  NOOOOO!  Heeeeelp!  HEEEELP ME!!! HEEEEEELP MEEEEEEE!!!!!” 

I stepped over his prone, shrieking body with a grimace, heading over to close the living room windows.  It sounded like I was skinning him alive.

“Nooo! NOOO! HELP! HELP! HELPHELPHELPHEEEEEEELP MEEEEEE…. NO!!!!!”

Seriously, I have no idea why the neighbors haven’t called Child Protective Services on me yet. 

Needless to say, we didn’t get the cute video that night, either.

Or the next.

The little booger’s been in a grumpy, uncooperative mood all week.  So, finally, I resorted to everyone’s favorite parenting method:

Bribery.

Last night we went to the used video store and bought a copy of The Polar Express, a film he’s seen only once and has been clamoring to watch again every since.

About thirty minutes ago I laid him down on the couch, turned on about three minutes of it (just enough to get him excited about it), and then put it on pause.  I took out my camera and stood in front of him.

“No, Mama!  More!  More movie!”  He squirmed on the couch, trying to see around me.

“Do you want me to turn the movie back on?”

“YES!  MORE MOVIE!”

“Young man, you do not demand, and you do not talk to adults in that tone of voice.  When you want something, you ask.  Politely.”

“Please!  Please!  Please, more movie, Mama!”  He twisted in anticipation.

“Then say “blahblah”.”

“I can’t!  I can’t say ‘blahblah’…”

“YES, you can.  Look, if you want to see this movie ever again,” I said, feeling a little bit like a hostage taker, “They you will look at this camera, and you will say it.”

And miracle of miracles, he actually said it:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Ql4flcyC8]

So, there you go.  The final clue.  I hope you guys appreciate what I had to go through to get it for you.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go enjoy the last thirty minutes of relaxation before the movie ends and Angry the DragonMonkey goes on the rampage again.

Remember:  Guesses to the email ([email protected])