I was telling my friend about me picking up the wrong dog last week from the groomer. She laughed, “Sue, I can tell you a better true story than that one.”

Since I consider myself a good storyteller, I doubted her veracity. “Have at it, Cathy. Let me hear it.”

“As you know, we had to move my mom in with us due to her health challenges. However, she had adopted a male, neutered cat about eight months ago, which we couldn’t house due to allergies. My eldest daughter moved into my Mom’s to tend to her cat. Last week my kid called me hysterically screaming, ‘Mom, there’s something wrong with grandma’s cat!'”

Oh my. This is awful, I thought.

Cathy continued, “My kid yells ‘there’s a kitten coming out of his hind end! What should I do? Pull it out?’ No. I’ll be right over.”

When Cathy arrived, the neutered male had delivered three black and orange kittens. “I searched through my Mom’s desk and found the adoption papers. Indeed my mom had adopted a neutered male, which obviously was not a neutered male. I called the animal shelter.

“Get a load of this, Sue. The gal who answered the phone asked: ‘Did your cat get out?’ WTH? What difference did that make? My mom allegedly adopted a HE, who morphed into a SHE with three offspring!”

I was laughing so hard tears ran down my cheeks. “So what is your recourse, Cathy? You gonna sue the animal shelter?”

Cathy scowled. “No, but I’m making them spay my mom’s cat and take in the three kittens for adoption when they’re weened. You know, I felt bad, for my mom was adamant she’d adopted a male. I doubted her; I thought she was losing her mind.”

Isn’t it rich why people automatically assume people over 75 have lost their minds? Nikki Haley, 2024 Presidential candidate, insists that those over 75 have to take mental competency tests to run for political office. What will be next? Voting tests, driver’s tests? And a myriad of others. Not all of we seniors are as mentally challenged as George Santos, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Laura Boebert, or Anna Luna. We still know male, neutered cats don’t have kittens!