My Boxes

My Take

DiVoran Lites

My Boxes by Thea

Scribe DiVoran

When I first came to live with mama ad papa, my kittens and I had been at a foster home. I loved my kittens, but as they grew and played harder and harder, I got more and more tired. One day me and my kittens were put in carriers and took to SPCA. That’s where people go to find beautiful cats and dogs to take home and love. 

I don’t remember how many kittens I have or what colors they are.  Mama likes to tell me stories about them. One day she counted the little pink bumps on my tummy, and because I had six of them under my white fur, she says I had six kittens. It’s just make-believe. She tells me I had six different colors of babies, too. Three were girls, and three were boys. I had two calicos, three tigers, and one tuxedo that looked like me. I wish I could see them again, but I am happy where I am, so it would have to be just a visit. I wouldn’t want to go back to the foster home because the people there are so busy they don’t have time to pay attention to one cat. When the place I lived didn’t want me anymore because I was going to have kittens, the people at the SPCA did so many things for me. They fixed me so I wouldn’t have any more kittens. And they put a chip about the size of a grain of rice under my skin so if I got lost they could find me. Also they gave me shots to keep me healthy. It all hurt for just a minute, but mama said they were good things. For some reason, she only paid five dollars instead of $85 for me, I wonder why.

Now I live in a house with three litter boxes all to myself. One thing about me is that I am a long cat. I don’t look like it curled up in mama’s chair.  When I laid on the floor mama measured me. She said that from the tip of one paw stretched out in front and one stretched out in back, I measured three feet long. She thinks that is the reason my waste falls out of the litterboxes. Scratching on the wall or the door or any other place doesn’t hide it. I am embarrassed and sorry.  

One place that is good and big is mama’s bathtub. It’s easy to clean too, but she decided I couldn’t use it. First, she put orange peels in the bottom. No cat I know likes the smell of orange peels. Later, she put a layer of water at the bottom of the tub. Every day I put my paws on the rim and look in to see if the water is still there. 

The other three boxes are on the porch, and in the studio. But I still liked mama’s pretty bathroom best, so I used the bathroom floor. Mama stepped in my water in her stocking feet. She didn’t like that. 

Once she got that book about Decoding Your Cat and read that cats already had a lot of anxiety and that it didn’t help at all to punish and be mean, and decided not to be harsh with me. Some people are very harsh if their cats go outside the little boxes, sometime they get sent away somewhere because their owner can’t figure out how to make them use the sanitation that is here for them. Mama read that big enough and clean enough boxes can help a lot. Litter boxes must be completely emptied and washed with unscented soap. For one cat once a month is enough, unless it is a very messy cat. The more cats you have the more cleaning you have to do. 

So now, mama is trying harder to keep my boxes as clean as can be, and I am happy. She’s going to get a big enough plastic box, so I don’t have to drop my litter onto the floor.  

DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn.  She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”