HERMIE (formerly
known as Jayden)
Hermie was given to me as a late Christmas present from my Uncle Royden in 2000 and he has been an unbelievable friend ever since.
My family used to have tons of cats running around the farm as rat repellent ever since I was young, but living on a highway caused them all to leave us in a very undesirable fashion. So my father vowed that he would never have cats around here ever again because it was not the proper environment for them, and it wasn't fair to put them at such a risk.
It wasn't until after our 3rd dog died (the 1st one hated my sister so we had to give her away, the 2nd one drank antifreeze, and the 3rd was hit by a car and had to be put down) that I started bugging my Dad for a cat. Of course he refused, but he had his reasons, so I told him it could be an indoor cat and then that way the chances of it getting run over would be much smaller. Yet, he still refused.
Christmas morning of 2000 my mom thought it would be cute, and gave me a big fat stuffed cat. I thought it was kind of funny, but was disappointed that there was no kitty there. When my Uncle came to visit us, he heard the whole story about me wanting a cat, and before he left said that he would look for me to see if he could find me one. I never really took him seriously, but a few weeks later I came out into the living room and there stood my Uncle with a cat carrier, and Hermie was looking at me through the little wire door. Dad wasn't extremely impressed, but he got over it:)
We let him out, and he just sauntered out of the carrier, walked across the room to the doorway from the living room to the kitchen, laid down and made himself right at home. For some reason, he took to that spot and has enjoyed it ever since.
When Hermie first arrived I had named him Jayden, but soon afterwards, my Dad took to calling him whatever it was that came to mind first. So one day Dad called him "Hermie", for what reason it is unknown, and proceeded to tell everyone that he thought that the cat looked like a "Hermie" and so from that day on, it seemed everyone agreed that Hermie was to be his permanent name.
Hermie is definitely my best friend in the world. He is always there to greet me at the door when I come home, he sleeps all curled up next to me every night, and makes his little kitty chirping (yes, I do believe you can call it a chirp) noise that he makes every time you go to touch him, or you disturb his slumber.
Hermie was lost to us for a week and a 3 days this past winter. The first big snow storm of the year and Hermie was locked outside, after exploring the great outdoors through the basement door which had blown open. The door had blown shut before he had a chance to get back inside, and he was left to fend for himself for almost 2 weeks. I was a complete mess, and ended up crying most of the night, figuring he was dead in the road somewhere. Luckily my boyfriend was there to make me feel a little better which made it a little bit more bearable, but my heart was completely broken.
Turned out that Dad found him later on underneath the porch after following a trail of kitty prints. I was never so happy to see the little bugger!! I was so glad that he was ok!! Before he had disappeared, Hermie was a overly large kitty, but when he came back he had lost almost more then half of himself which left me amazed. I had never seen him looking so slim!
Anyway, ever since the day I got Herm I would take pictures of him on almost a daily basis so now i think it is time to share a few... So, here you are... Meet my fabulous kitty HERMIE!
[section last updated: 6:30pm May 04/2003]