She changed our lives. In those first few months I referred to her as the catalyst, pun completely intended.

It started on the last day before summer break at work, under a gloomy overcast sky. I was running an errand for the office, delivering something to another building.

When I came out, there was a cat. It was minding its own business. Curious, and with little to do in the few hours of work remaining, I ignored all my childhood lessons about stray animals and called out to it in the standard way.

“Kittykittykitty?”

Its ears perked up. It focused on me.

I got down on a knee. “Come here, kitty.”

The cat hurried over to me. At that point the voice of my mother and father spoke in my head in unison, “It’s going to bite you, and then what?”

Ignoring reason again, I reached out. The cat let me stroke its furry head. I stood up. It rubbed against my leg.

“Good kitty. Bye, kitty.”

I turned around and headed toward my building. A few paces ahead, I looked behind me.

The cat was following me.

I kept going, and the cat followed. I crossed over a section where two curbs were divided by a gravel street cutting through. I looked back. The cat had stopped in the middle of the street and was looking around in confusion. I became afraid. There was little to no traffic on this lifeless last day, but I didn’t want to take changes. I walked back to the street’s middle and petted the cat. It resumed following me over the curb and across the grass in front of my building.

At one point I stopped and took a picture of the cat as it rubbed against my pants leg a second time.

We kept walking, the cat and I, until I reached my building’s door. The cat stopped at the threshold. I petted it one more time and disappeared inside.

I went upstairs. I sat down. Now I had a choice to make.

Actually, I didn’t. One would be the ‘smart’ decision and the other incredibly stupid. I reached to several people live and via text messaging. The question I asked was, “I found this cat outside; should I take it home with me?”

The majority of feedback I received was a collective “hell no” for a number of reasons. My boss said, “There’s no way you’re going to keep an alley cat from shitting up your house.” My parents were equally against, hitting my phone with reasons such as “Do you know how much it costs to have a pet?” “Cats will turn on you in a heartbeat,” and above all, “You’re not allowed to have pets at your apartment, remember?”

But I knew there was only one person whose opinion ultimately mattered: my girlfriend, who was living with me and would have the final say in adopting an animal. I sent her the same question, along with the photo I’d taken.

“It’s up to you,” she wrote back.

I thought and I pondered. I reached a compromise. “If the cat is still out there when I leave work,” I thought and texted, “then I’ll bring it home. I won’t make an effort to look around for it.”

In the meantime, I did research. This involved Googling and reading articles about stray cats versus feral ones. The cat’s earlier behavior categorized it as a ‘stray,’ I discovered. A feral cat would have bolted from a human the instant I called out to it. Mark one in the ‘take it home’ box, I decided.

5:00 PM hit. I was outside and done. It had rained a little but the sun had since broken through the grime. I looked to my left. To my right. No cat. I went my car.

The cat emerged from beneath another vehicle. By following me it had ventured to strange territory and had been forced to take shelter in the rain.

You said you’d do it, I thought. So here we are. Conditions have been met. Now what?

“Here, kittykitty.”

It walked over to me. I petted it.

My rear passenger door was open. I took a deep breath, picked up the cat and placed it in the back seat. The cat immediately jumped out and looked at me, shaken but not frightened enough to retreat.

“This is a bad idea,” I told myself. “Don’t do this. This is a bad, bad idea. Don’t be stupid.”

I picked up the cat, put it in the back seat, shut the door, buckled in and turned the engine.

I started driving home. The cat hunkered down in the floorboard, terrified out of its wits. It allowed me to reach back and pet it as it meowed a song of frightened confusion. My inner monologue fired up at a klaxon’s pitch.

Stop the car! Let it out! Pull over and put it outside now, right now, right, fucking, now, this instant! Put it out and don’t look back! This is your last chance! Do it now! You’re making a terrible mistake! Goddammit Phil, you stop this fucking car!

The cat meowed louder. I winced. Animal kidnapping. Cruelty? What was I doing? I passed the security gate. I was out on the open road. I’d missed my shot. I was taking the animal home.

We got home. My girlfriend was waiting for me outside.

“I got a surprise,” I said.

“You brought home the cat, didn’t you?”

She followed me to my car. I opened the rear door and the cat jumped out. It poked around our parking lot, taking in its new surroundings.

“It’s going to run away now,” my girlfriend said.

I opened the apartment door. “Come on, kitty,” I called out.

The cat walked over the threshold, no questions asked, no coercion involved. I shut the door.

The both of us stared down at this new addition, which stopped and stared for a moment before rubbing (‘loving’) against all of our furniture. It wasn’t scared, just baffled.

It was home. But now my girlfriend and I had decisions to make and preparations to do. I left her to get acquaintance with the cat while I went to PetCo and bought a loot of cat supplies that ran me a little over a hundred: food bowls, food, litter box, litter, a carrying cage and toys. Outside, the rain returned with a cold hell’s fury. I trudged back to the car and drove home in an apocalyptic torrent.

The cat, whom we were referring to as a ‘he’ (a young cat’s gender is a bit difficult to tell by its genitals) tried to chew a hole in the food bag. I fixed it a hearty bowl and it wolfed the food down. We filled its litter box and showed it where to evacuate. Then my girlfriend cooked us some burgers. Dinner was a struggle because the cat kept jumping on the table and trying to snatch our plates from our hands.

It was getting settled in, and doing so a lot quicker than I expected. It still had a lot of wild ‘stray’ habits to break. If trying to steal our burgers was any indication, the cat was starving. But beyond that, my girlfriend and I faced a greater challenge ahead.

We were going to have to move. The apartment had a strict ‘no pets’ policy in place and I’d just violated that rule with a vengeance.

But first we had appointments to make with the local veterinarian. Though we were calling the cat ‘he’ we had a suspicion that it might actually be female. Then our fears escalated when we realized the cat might be pregnant. If that were the case I’d fucked up ten fold. I’d doomed us.

The first vet trip confirmed that the cat was indeed female, her age estimated around six months old. Whether she was pregnant was indeterminable. We agreed to bring her back the next day for a spaying. A regular spaying would cost a hundred bucks. Kittens present in the womb would add on an extra $25. All in all, I spent about $500 in vet fees getting the cat her shots and sterilization, money I’d thankfully had in savings.

Then we spent the rest of my summer break locating a new apartment and then packing and moving. There was no way we’d be able to keep the cat a secret for long, especially if someone from maintenance happened by with a big mouth. There were expenses. There was stress. My dad had to gift me financing to make the moving process smoother. But after surviving a storm of extra fees and hassles, we settled into a new place that allowed animals with a $350 pet deposit. We brought along Marilyn as well and managed to keep the cat from eating her until the hamster’s natural death.

A year later, our cat is fat and thriving. She rules the house. We have spoiled her with treats and toy hordes. Her favorite sleeping spot is my memory foam pillow, which is fine up until she starts licking my hair in the middle of the night.

I’d say putting her in my car and bringing her home with me was a good mistake. I believe she’s a lot happier being pampered by humans instead of struggling to survive in a parking lot. And I often wonder how different all our lives, including hers, would have been if I hadn’t made that split second decision.