Ernest Hemingway once said, “One cat just leads to another,” and that has proven true many times in my life. Funny, because I’m not really a cat person, though I always like my own cats well enough. I think I tend to keep getting them because cats aren’t much trouble and, really, there’s not a whole lot of difference between two cats and three cats. Or three cats and four cats. Or four cats and six cats. You get the picture. At one point during my high school years we had seventeen cats. I will grant that that was perhaps too many.

As of five o’clock this afternoon, we have four cats. Olof has been talking on and off for the past couple of years about getting a new cat, but I’ve been a bit lukewarm on the idea. This morning while reading the paper he remarked on the large number of kittens available in the classified ads (not surprising this time of year). Then when I went to the store this afternoon, I noticed a sign on the bulletin board outside advertising two kittens to be given away, one an orange female. Something about the ad struck me and I put one of the phone number slips in my pocket.

I told Olof about the kittens when I got home and he said I should call and ask about them. I did, and told the woman that we were interested in the little female, and we made arrangements to drive out and see her later. When we got there, both kittens were adorable and since their fate was not to be a pretty one if they didn’t find new homes, I said we’d take both. Now they’re settled cozily in their new bed in our upstairs bathroom. Olof says we should try to find a different home for the little male, but I’ve got my heart set on keeping him. He finally agreed that we could keep him on two conditions: one, that I keep the name that the original owners had bestowed upon him, Prins Bertil; and two, that if someone we know wants him, we let them have him (that is, we won’t actively try to give him away). It was the best I could do, so now I just have to hope that nobody else wants to take him.