How many rules can you break when you’re only a few weeks old?

The Rule of Threes, according to the animal shelter, is a guideline for bringing a new cat home. Their goal is that you not expect too dang much out of it. A prepared owner is a patient owner.

Basically, you can expect certain outcomes at three days; at three weeks; and at three months. To sum up, your cat is going to start out suspicious, untrusting, and under the sofa. It might not eat. Stick the sucker in a small room and don’t make any sudden moves. At three weeks you can hope for some consistency in the litter box situation. You should not introduce the animal to strangers. It’ll freak out and go back under the sofa. At three months your cat should have adjusted somewhat. Basically, by then you’ve got everything you’re going to get out of that cat. This is it.

Wally and Clifford, my two new kittens, blasted out of the crate and into their new room. Clifford climbed directly into my lap. Wally waited a few more minutes, while she did a thorough search for the food dish. Once the food dish was located, both kittens ate everything in it and used the litter box. Then played with each other a while, and finally curled up either side of my neck like quotation marks and purred lavishly.

They are polishing off everything I give them to eat. They are taking the food and making more Wally and Clifford with it. One week ago they were tadpole-shaped. They are now noticeably more tubular. At the current rate of growth I will have to slay an antelope and drag it home every other day. They’ve met and approved of all my friends.

Essentially, Wally and Clifford have gone through the entire adjustment period in the first twenty-four hours. Other than an occasional inquiry into the health of their college funds, they show no signs of insecurity. Some of the other arcane cat rules have also proved ignorable. They like to chew electrical cords, but this is not sanctioned by the management. The management read that you can wrap the cords in tin foil and they will lose their interest in them quickly. Nobody likes to chew tin foil.

Wally, doomed to be forever out of focus

Nobody but Wally! Wally thinks it’s cool. Tin foil was removed and the spray bottle of water employed for the first time. Because cats absolutely hate to be sprayed with water.

Except Wally, who think it’s interesting and just sits there looking surprised, licks the moisture off her coat, and resumes chewing on cords.

Well, she came advertised by the shelter as “A furry friend with legendary charm; a future icon.” I’d say it’s boilerplate, because the same exact thing was said about her brother, but of course they are related, so maybe. I do not know what you can do to be described as legendary when you’re only a few weeks old. But maybe she is a future icon. Hell, she might be a future wombat. When you’re only the size of a potholder, it’s hard to predict.

My first cat (Saint) Larry answered to her name in the first five minutes. Neither Wally nor Clifford has shown signs of knowing their names yet. To be fair, there are two of them, and they’re almost always together, and hollering Hey Wally-and-Clifford at them is probably hard for them to suss out. Worse, I am now 36 years older than I was when Larry picked me out, and I’m mixing up their names myself, as well as calling them Tater every so often. It’s confusing.

Names are tough anyway. I remember the old joke about the guy calling his three kittens Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy because they followed him all the days of his life. I’m not sure I’ve got these kids’ names right yet. Clifford is totally a Clifford but Wally shows no signs of wallitude. Wally has a gritty kernel of self-satisfaction and persistence. She’s nobody’s Wally. I’m thinking maybe: Higgs.

Because if ever there were a case of two tiny particles colliding at high velocity, with the ensuing debris field, it’s here. If the folks at CERN had bothered to check behind my washing machine for their elusive boson, they might have saved themselves years of effort. I don’t know what-all else is back there, but Wally emerges from it with dark matter hanging off her whiskers.

Is she a genius, or a janitor? She just jumped in a box. We won’t know for sure until we open it.