Saturday, April 29th 2023

“So your little guy is definitely quite malnourished. You’re going to want to give him a fair bit of food to bulk up again. Give him wet food, he’ll probably guzzle that right down. He looks to be just about six to eight months old, give or take, so still very young. Not neutered, so you’re going to want to book another appointment for another day if you want to get that done. We’ve shaved him to get rid of the matting, but the fur should grow back pretty quickly. We also found no tattoos or microchips on him. Do you want to get that done today and have him registered to your address?”

Jessica looked at her son holding the scrawny black furball and nodded, “Yea let’s get that done in case he gets lost again. Do we like just…free feed the thing to get it to put on weight?”

“Never a good idea to free feed an animal usually. It’s more or less suggested you have regulated meal times like humans do, it helps them with a sense of routine and also allows you to monitor their caloric intake if there are changes in weight and prevent things like obesity. Based on looks he could be a Maine Coon or a mix thereof. So these guys are meant to be pretty big cats. At full size he could be anywhere between fifteen to twenty-five pounds.”

Jessica’s eyes bulged but she kept silent. Her wife next to her nodded, “Is there anything else we need to know?”

“We’ve caught him up on his vaccinations, including distemper, heartworm, and rabies. We’ll also give you some medication to take home for his ear mites and flea and tick prevention. He needs to take that with food, you can just hide it in some wet food. Most cats don’t mind it anyways so they’ll eat it right up. Apart from that and his neutering, he’s good to go until his next annual check-up.”

“Thanks Dr. Belinda, if you could get him micro chipped, I’ll talk to the vet tech up front about another appointment for the neutering some other time.”

“Sounds good, Sarah at front desk will help you register the microchip with your resident address. I’ll bring him out once we’re done. Oh, and we’re also going to need a name for his file.”

On the vet examination table, Kyungsan was gently comforting the small shivering cat, scratching behind his ears. Jessica ruffled his hair a bit, “What do you wanna name him?”

“I’m not sure mom,” he looked up at her, his eyes soft and shining. Jessica smiled at him.

“We can also just put him down with your last name for now until you settled on a name? Then you can call us and we’ll update your file.”

“Sounds good, we’ll do that. Kyungsan, leave him there, the doctor will microchip him and we’ll pick him up at front desk. Then we have to go pick out some supplies.”

Her son gave the cat one last scritch and left with his two moms to go wait outside.

“Jessi?”

“Hmm?”

“We also need to swing by Trader Joes, I need to pick up some groceries before we head home.”

“Babe you’re probably dead tired, I’ll do groceries. Don’t worry about it. We’re just going to go to the pet store after this, pick up the essentials for this apparently huge feline we’re adopting, and then heading home to drop the two of you off.”

“Jessica Jung, you don’t usually grocery shop. You don’t know what we need.”

“Well text it to me. I’m sure I’ll manage. I did my own grocery shopping before I met you too babe. I’m a grown adult. It’ll be fine.”

“You also told me you fainted twice at work, forgive me if I don’t completely trust your skills in the domestic department.”

“It’s fine.”

~ An hour later ~

It was not fine.

“Peanut butter…how in the