My Cat Sophie FaceTimes and Still Acts Like a Kitten!

As Told By: Courtney Steele

I never thought I’d be allowed to own a cat. My mother was extremely allergic, and she didn’t seem like the cat type. So, you can imagine how jealous I was when my friend took in a stray cat she found one rainy spring night in May of 2013. She named the cat Whiskey. Whiskey was a fat cat but extremely adept to strangers and loved cuddling and receiving pets. It didn’t take long for us to realize that Whiskey was pregnant.

Cut to a few weeks later and my friend suddenly owned seven cats, including Whiskey. We spent our afternoons hanging out and playing with the six kittens. They were just so small and so fragile; they made my heart soar when I got to see them. 

I wanted a kitten so badly. I even got one to fall asleep in my arms. I took a photo and sent them to my mom just to put some feelers out. 

It wasn’t long before five of the six kittens were taken and there was only one left; the last kitten was the one I took a photo with and had sent to my mom. Because the last kitten was asleep almost every time people were over to play with them, she never stuck out to anyone. My friend told me she really needed to get all of them adopted and asked if I wanted this last one. 

I had that same thought again that my mom would take one look and say no. That that didn’t stop me from putting that last kitten in a Build-A-Bear box with some blankets and hauling her over to my mom’s house, though.

It was 9PM at night, my mom was already in her pajamas and had a suspicious look on her face as I entered the house with this large box. We sat in the back room and I presented the small, sleepy grey and white kitten to her. She didn’t speak as we talked through the whole ordeal of how my friend could only keep Whiskey and one of the kittens. 

I will never forget setting this small kitten on my mom’s lap and watching her fall asleep sitting up. My mom looked down and said, “Did she really just fall asleep on me while sitting up?”

I had to return her to my friend’s house that night but when I got home my mom sighed and asked me, “So when are we going to pick the kitten up? We will need to buy some cat stuff.”

It was the most surreal thing I’d ever heard come from my mother. She didn’t like cats, we had a bad experience with one when I was younger, and she had allergies. I knew this kitten must’ve hit a soft spot. We went out and purchased all the necessities, including a book on how to take care of a kitten. We had no idea what we were doing. 

I got her a collar (she hated it), I laid out her cat bed (she never slept in it), and I tried to get her expensive kitten food (she puked it all up). I felt like a terrible cat mom. I didn’t even have a name picked out. I wanted to name her Ella, like Cinderella, because she was covered in grey fur, but my mom thought it was Ella didn’t roll off the tongue. We went through a ton of names, but it wasn’t until one day when I was watching Soul Surfer that it hit me. I had looked up the lead actress’s name, Anna Sophia Rob. I turned to my mom and said “ANNA SOPHIA!” She looked at me and said “…Sophie?” and there it was. She was our little Sophie!

Sophie forwent the collar, slept at the foot of my bed, then moved up to sleep on me somewhere and continued to throw up almost everything we gave her. We learned she had a sensitive stomach and could only feed her certain foods. This was especially tough to deal with when she’d sneak a lick of whipped cream or try to eat a random piece of food off our plates. Immediate vomiting would then occur about five minutes later. At least my mom still loved her, even with her allergies.

We learned that Sophie is vocal. In fact, she is the most vocal cat I’ve ever met. She came across so shy and sleepy but once she was comfortable, she chirped constantly. This little ball of fluff chirps when she enters a room and when she leaves it. She meows when she wakes up, when she gets pets and when I call her name. I’m so used to it I don’t even register it anymore as anything other than normal. I don’t know how I got such a talkative little girl but I’m thankful for it. Everyone tells me how much character she has, and I honestly couldn’t agree more. When I moved into my apartment, I took Sophie with me and she had a riot watching all the birds from the upper floor window. As we adjusted to working remotely, I find her cuddling up either next to me on the floor or right between me and my laptop. My coworkers know she’s in a room simply from hearing her usual chirps or meows as she mills about the space.

One of the hardest times of my life was when I studied abroad in Japan for a little over a year. I made my mom Facetime me just so I could say hi to Sophie. To say I got a little emotional would be an understatement. 

Sophie loves belly pets and playing with hair ties, though you need to keep an eye on her when she plays with the hair ties. She’s attempted to eat far too many. She’s terrified of cars and even more so of loud noises (whenever I shake open a garbage bag she goes running). She’s an indoor kitty but an outdoor kitty at heart and I had to buy her a leash to stop her inevitable bolting out into the yard whenever we opened the door. Once she gets out there, though, she likes to lounge in the sun and eat some grass. 

At eight years old, she still acts like a kitten, and I couldn’t be more thankful to have such a little gem of a cat. I really ended up getting the best one of the bunch.

About Courtney Steele

Courtney Steele is an artist, voice actor and writer from Toledo, Ohio. When she’s not working on one of her many crafts, you can usually find her wandering around on Twitter or sharing her drawings or photos of her cat, Sophie on Instagram.  To hire Courtney, visit her on Twitter at @CourtlynnSteele and Instagram at @court4lynn!

MEOWTASTIC!

We at Lucky Pineapple Films love cats. We love them so much, we have our own cat themed store, The Cattiest Cat Shop. To celebrate our love of cats, we invited people to share their own cat stories. When we moved the website over to a new shop, we didn’t want to lose them. Voila! Here the amazing cat stories are forever preserved on the Lucky Pineapple Films website.