CAN I HAZ KITTY PLZ?? K THXBY!

OK, I have a new reason not to stop at fast food joints besides trans fats now. You might end up with your happy meal prize being a kitten.

Yep, we have a new addition to the family now. Her name is Bonita, keeping with the "B" name theme, so now we have Bailey the dog, Bella the cat, and Bonita the puffball.

The worst part is, we could have had a boy kitten. I relinquished my right too quickly, and once again, I am still the only male in the house. Well, besides the beta fish Sammie, and most of our "man bonding" involves me staring at him while he beats his head against the glass of his bowl because he thinks he wants to take me on.

Come to think of it, maybe we are bonding after all...but I digress...

Anyway, we stopped on the way home from camping this weekend with the church up near Leavenworth for dinner at a drive in called Zeke's. They have great ostrich burgers, as I was told by a fellow camper, and tried for myself. What can I say, I'm a sucker for eating strange meat. No cat jokes yet, OK?

Our little one was enamored by what appeared to be a stray cat by the trash cans while we were ordering our dinner. The fact he was around and alive made me feel better about what was in my burger actually being ostrich, but then she started the petting. My lovely wife went to check out the cat, no doubt to see if our daughter now needed a good handwashing, and that's when the question popped out from my little one "Can we take her home?"

I began thinking of 20 reasons why we wouldn't take the cat home, but the lady in line behind us, who was some Neo-PETA animal rescue lady, plants the idea firmly in my four-year-old's mind that this is a great idea to give kitty a new home with us, that it's the earth-freindly thing to do. Obviously, we as parents should have no problem with this. I confess, I really wanted to go help her hug a tree right then. Very hard.

Fortunately, I thought, the owner stuck his head out of the window and came to my rescue, saying, "Actually that's my grandson's cat."

Oh, too bad, kitty's already got a home. Let's get our food and get out of here before PETA lady introduces my daughter to any other great ideas...

And then the owner kills me with "She just had a litter of kittens."

It's over. Because now not only is my little love gasping and crying out "KITTINZ?" with her hands clasped together, but love of my life also has the "we're going kitty adopting" gleam in her eye.

I try the financial way out..."Well, how much do they cost, because frankly, we're a little strapped for cash right now, and I don't think we can afford to..."

He doesn't get the hint. In fact, He moves to seal the deal. "Nope. They don't cost anything. We're giving them away. That is, if you're interested..." His eye gleams. He knows EXACTLY what he is doing to me!

So I find myself going up to the barn (they live on site at the hamburger joint, you see. Of course!) and looking at four kittens. Three of them back off. They know not to mess with me right now. One doesn't, and comes loping across the floor to us.

It takes about thirty seconds to figure out this is the one going home with us.

So we spend the rest of the night with puffball curled up in the folds of my wife's hoodie, while we are all trying to figure out names for her. We finally settle on "Bonita Naranjita", Spanish for "Little, Orange and Cute". It works.

I have found out, though, that she likes to play Wii. Or at least play with the Wii-mote.

One thing though. Bella, she is not a happy camper about this. She has yet to go on hunger strike or show her disdain publicly by pooping in the living room, but she is having a hard time adjusting. As you can see, this is what she looked like the night we brought the puffball home. If this doesn't say "I am not amused," then I don't know what does. :)

So now I'm outnumbered 5 to 1 in the house. Or 1 and a half I guess...time to go spend some quality "man time" with my fish...