Munch

Last Tuesday night my friend Sara, an Italian aid worker who also works at my school, showed up to my house. In her hands was a bundle of fabric with a little white thing in the folds.
“Look!” she said adoringly. I didn’t know what I was looking at. “I found it on the beach, alone. I didn’t want to leave it.” It was a kitten. A tiny, tiny little kitten. “Pequeniiiiiiiiiina (veeeeery small)! I was hoping to leave it with you until I get back from Italy.”
“Sara, I can’t!” I said, “I’ve never taken care of a kitten. I don’t know how to feed it or care for it. What if it dies? I have enough going on in my life right not.”
“Ok,” Sara said sadly, “I guess I’ll go put it out on the street.” Presumambly to die a horrible, slow death freezing to death, waiting for a gigantic man-eating spider to finish it off.
And so I took it in. Such a cliché, but what was I supposed to do? That first night the little bugger, who I’ve come to call Munch, cried all night long. I gave him a box to sleep in, swathed in blankets, but he just cried and howled. The only thing that seemed to calm him was my holding him. So I held him all night. Or her. Whatever. He crawled all over and around me all night, and neither of us slept.
Now I spend every waking moment worrying that Munch is going to die. I heat up milk for it (him? Her? How can you tell with a kitten?) which it seems to like. When it fusses, which is almost always, I hold it and sometimes that calms it down. When I’m in the house it sits in a joey pouch hanging from my neck, poking its tiny little head out and looking around with its little black eyes. Is it healthy? Should I be looking for medication for parasites? Or fleas? How old is Munch? Does it miss its mom? Am I going to come home after class one day to find my little Munchkin dead on the floor?

This experience has made me decide to put off parenting indefinitely.

My birthday is coming up. I don’t know what I should do to celebrate.