Tripper

This is Tripper. He got his name because he trips me all the time.

He was a rescue, and the one I put the most effort into. He was abandoned, along with his sibling, at the school where my husband teaches. One of the other teachers got the sibling, but this little guy wouldn't be caught. It was a very cold day, right after Christmas break, when Jim told me there was a kitten at the school that no one could catch.

I went up there, and saw his little fuzzy head peering out of an AC pipe. Then, I heard his raspy, Siamese-sounding meow, and he had my heart. I tried for several hours to coax him out, but he wouldn't budge. I knew there would be no getting him out while the buses were loading kids up after school, so I took a break, and came back after the last bus had left. It was very cold by then, almost freezing, and I had a rehearsal that night. I had to get him soon. There was another teacher helping me, and a custodian.

The tiny kitten got up into the motor in the Suburban, and I couldn't raise the hood to get him out, until a parent, up at school for a basketball game, helped me. I managed to grab him and get him into the cat carrier, and he went to rehearsal with me.

He'll sit on my lap, and, if I don't look at him while I'm petting him, he will reach up a paw and pat my face.