Moblin is my kitty. I don’t expect anyone to understand our bond, but I’m going to tell the story anyway. We already had three cats in our home when I had gone on a trip to visit my daughter. Her semi-feral cat had kittens about four months earlier. The tiny black kitten sitting in the chair was about a third of the size of his siblings. At first I thought he was from a different litter…he was that small.
While visiting, he spent all of the time (about two hours) curled in my lap. I Facetimed my husband (because a picture is worth 1000 words) to ask if I could bring the kitten home. Of course he said, no. I was heartbroken, but I expected that. We already had a houseful of cats. So I took my daughter to dinner. While eating, I got a call from my husband telling me if I really wanted the kitten, get a carrier and bring him home, so I did.
This is Moblin with a piece of paper stuck to his booger.
We took him to the vet. all our pets get an initial visit to make sure everything is okay. Moblin had a little more going on than the average cat. His mom had passed on the herpes virus to him when he was born (so he obviously couldn’t be vaccinated). It didn’t cause any really major issues (like his brother lost an eye to excessive conjunctivitis because of it), but he does have a perpetual booger. The vet was afraid that he might not want to eat if he can’t smell his food. Those fears were (very) unfounded. He eats…a lot…and he wants things that cats aren’t supposed to. He’s nothing like Ganon, but he’s the first cat I’ve ever known who will eat sugar. If I leave cupcakes on the counter, he will lick the frosting off. He will try to take cookies from you, especially if there is milk or whipped cream involved. Oh my goodness…whipped cream. Do no try to eat or drink anything with whipped cream on it in front of him. He will lick it off, then stare at you like…what? If I make a cake, he will try to stick his face in the bowl to eat the batter…yes, really.
He has always been a playful cat. He loves toys, but he gets bored pretty easily. I’ve tried buying toys for him, but he usually picks something to play with for a few days, then gets bored with it. It’s easier to find stuff around the house to occupy him. He adores hair ties, bread ties, and anything somewhat stringy. Every time I’m done with a bread tie, I toss it on the floor for him to play with for a while, then throw it away when he’s bored. If a hair tie breaks, it’s a new toy. If I have one that’s kinda crappy, I give it to him.
Beyond just playing with toys, Moblin loves “jump scares,” and tries to pull the other cats into his obsession. Anything loud and sudden that puffs his tail makes him happy. He will hide behind walls, behind doors, or even in the bathtub, then jump out at just the right time to scare me, my husband, or one of the other cats. It’s absolutely precious, especially because he’s so good at it. I never know when he’s hiding, so I haven’t caught him on camera, yet. Don’t worry, I will…eventually.
His playful nature has gotten him into trouble a couple of times. Being as curious as he is, he wanted to go outside. He scared me pretty badly when he ran out after I opened the door. I spent several hours looking for him; I put my terrible Spanish language skills to the test asking my neighbors if they’d seen him. Later that evening, I went back out to look one last time to find him huddling under the car. I was relieved, but he looked so scared and helpless. I have no idea what happened to him. He never ran out the front again, but he tried to climb the back fence. We let our cats go out in the back yard on rare occasions…as long as we are there to supervise them. At one point he made it over the fence, was scared by a dog, and ran up a tree. My husband had to get him down.
The worst time was when he was sitting too close to the fence. The neighbor’s dog had dug enough of a hole under the fence that when Moblin got close enough, the dog grabbed him by the paw and pulled him under. The three dogs proceeded to maul him, collapsing one of his lungs, separating his ribs, puncturing the skin on his rear, and nearly killing him. The vet at the emergency clinic thought he might need surgery, but Moblin’s a fighter. All he needed was a couple of days in a high oxygen environment, and he was well on his way to recovery.
I had to keep him in a crate for two weeks during his recovery to keep him from jumping and injuring himself further.
It didn’t take long for Moblin to recover physically, but he’s still recovering emotionally from that attack. He’s always been a bit of an adrenaline junky. For the first few months, everything puffed his tail…and not in a good, playful way. He was even a bit stand-offish. That phase passed, but he’s grown even needier than he was before the attack. He’s always been a lap kitty, but now it seems like he needs my attention at every moment. For instance: this morning he had been sitting on my lap for over an hour. I needed to get up to do something, so I gently coaxed him off. He proceeded to crawl right back onto my lap and curl up. As adorable as it was, I had to put him down.
He also has time limits for me and my devices. If I’m on my tablet, he’ll start touching the screen or laying on top of it to let me know that I’ve been ignoring him too long. Same thing for the computer. He will block the monitor. My desk has a drawer for the keyboard, so I don’t have to worry about him typing things for me, lol. Fortunately I can hold him and a Switch pro controller at the same time, so I can play Animal Crossing: New Horizons all I want.
Sometimes he has limits for my husband, too, lol.
Moblin does some annoying things, too. The perpetual booger that I mentioned earlier can become a big problem. When his sinuses act up, he gets congested, just like a person with allergies would. How he deals with it is the issue. He will sneeze huge snot rockets into the oddest places. I will find strings of dried booger on walls that I didn’t even think he could get to. Yesterday I found that my couch blanket had a corner glued together with snot. Apparently Moblin blew his nose on it during the night. The very worst thing he does, is come up to me with head butts and love, then try to subtly wipe his booger onto me.
Moblin has been through a lot of things that a little kitten should never have to deal with. Through it all he has remained good tempered and sweet hearted. He’s grown from the tiniest little runt of his litter into the beautiful black cat he is now. He is my baby; he is my Moblin.
Even with his snot string on the wall beside him, he’s adorable.
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