Bing Bong

My son can be a bit of an odd duck sometimes, and I mean that in the best sense of duck oddness. He seemed to be born laughing, although I'm sure he was probably not laughing at me but with me in that perilous moment of his birth. No, I'm pretty sure it was at me. Here he is at 3 months, yukking it up with a photographer.

But seriously folks, he is a silly 20 year-old kid, and you never know what quirky thing he's going to come up with next. (Gosh, how he takes his quirkiness after that dad of his because you all know I am not quirky in the least.)

And now I shall share a story of quirkiness.

But first, pertinent facts in order for this story to be appreciated: Of all my kids, he was the neatest child and the most likely to call for a ride home in the middle of the night if he spent the night with a friend. He hates insects and mice and is allergic to cats. He has been known to turn down vacationing with friends he loved because he did not want to suffer through a balmy tropical vacation (doesn't tolerate heat well at all.)

So you can see why it came as a surprise when, late last winter, he announced to us that he was not planning on moving home this summer but that he was going to live with a bunch of guys in a campus house. There was no discussion about this; he simply made up his mind and informed us. We never saw the house before he moved in.

Therefore, the kid who hates heat has been living in a veritable un-airconditioned sauna house inhabited by messy college guys since May. So far, he has done as well as can be expected. I'm proud to say he has never once called home in the middle of the night for us to come pick him up, in spite of seeing, in the first week there on his own, a mouse in the sauna house kitchen pictured at left.

A couple of weeks ago, when the boys were out having an adventure at McDonald's (It's a small college town--very small) they spotted a little black kitten abandoned in the parking lot.

They took it home (of course!) and being the uninitiated cat owners that they are, immediately fed it tuna and milk, which they soon discovered was not a good idea. Turns out, kitties don't tolerate the bacteria in milk well. I asked him why they didn't just buy canned cat food if they were going that route, and he said, "We didn't think about that."

(Note to self: When Son is grown and married, make sure he knows how to feed newborns before wife and baby come home from hospital. Or parking lot.)




















One of my son's most endearing qualities is his nurturing side, which I've often seen when he deals with Zoe.

And now, this side of him has completely blossomed with the cat whom he has quirkily named "Bing Bong." Apparently, many names were up for discussion amongst the boys, but the winner was my son's choice: Bing Bong.

I said, "Let me get this straight. You're going to take that cat to the vet, and they're going ask, 'What's his name?' and you're going to reply, 'Bing Bong?'"

"Yep. Bing Bong."

Well, Bing Bong has been to the vet now, and that is how we know I have a grandson cat. Also, they found out he was approximately 1 week old when they found him, a lot younger than they thought, and that they nearly poisoned him with milk and tuna, which would've been unfortunate. At three weeks, he weighs 1 lb 9 ozs.

So the moral of this story is: There is no moral. But there is a denouement, a "tying up" of loose plot strings, if you will:

Apparently, my son is no longer allergic to cats.
The mouse who could not be vanquished with poison or traps has now wisely decided to lay low because of the cat.
The heat wave has subsided, so the boys are doing more than lying around lifeless on dirty futons with a kitten clawing them.
They have learned something about how not to feed kittens.

And now I present the newest addition to the family, Bing Bong: