By Lori Stokes of North Carolina

One Thursday night, I went to eat dinner with a friend and I heard a tiny kitten meowing near the side of the house as I opened the door to go in.  My friend had no pets because she did not like cats; she said they gave her “the creeps.”  As I went in the door, I told her “I hear a kitten.”  She said, “No, it’s your imagination.”

Being a kitty person, I knew better. I ran outside and found the baby.  He was all soaking wet.  The house had been power washed earlier but no one knew there was a baby kitty over in the bushes or that he had gotten wet.  I cleaned him off with paper towels in case he had offensive tasting soap on him and put him back down and went back inside so the mama could get her baby.  After much sitting there watching him cry, she walked away and didn’t come back.

I ran over to Wal-Mart, got a kitten bottle and kitten replacement milk and took the baby home.  I got up throughout  the night to feed him and help  him with his toilet needs and he slept in my drawer.  That night, I thought, I will sneak him into the office in a shoe box on Friday morning.  I planned to take his milk along and keep him in the Administrator’s desk because she is an animal lover to the 100th degree. I planned to take him to the local animal shelter at lunchtime.

So, I took him to work but as lunch time neared, the administrator started to cry. She said, “You can’t take him to the shelter.  They’ll just kill him.”

I said, “Well, I can’t keep him up here and get in trouble. He has to be fed every two hours.”

She called the Human Resource Director who came up and saw what we had. I told her I was going to the shelter at lunch and the HR Director said, “If they don’t have a mama cat at the shelter to foster him, bring him to my office Tuesday morning.  You can keep and feed him in there.”

Guess what? They had no foster mamas at the shelter.

The baby gets to stay…

What a journey.  Every night for the next four weeks, I fed and loved this little baby who picked up the name Baby Lucky. Every night I packed his little cat carrier’s zippered pockets with food, dry kitty milk formula, clean bottles, baby wipes and eventually we added kitty litter to the supplies.  I went to see him during breaks and lunch, usually with co-workers in tow, and any time the Human Resource office thought he needed his mama.  The HR office saw more traffic in four weeks than a whole year combined.

Lucky was five days old when I got him and we were all so excited at the office when his little eyes finally opened to see the people who had loved him all that time.  People came every day to see Lucky and at 5 o’clock he had a line of people waiting for their turn to hold him.  We were like parents, all excited when he had his first litter box experience all by himself.  He must have peed on everyone here at least once.  It was a rite of passage.  Lucky loved his rides to work and would lie on his back in my arm and suck his toe on the ride.  We have videos of him sucking on his toe like a baby would suck his thumb.

Lucky grew up…

The day finally came when he was a big boy and could stay home.  That first day Lucky was gone from the office was a sad day for many.  One co-worker said “What? He’s not here today. I’m having a rotten day and wanted to hold him to feel better.”

Today, six months later, Lucky is a big boy, and he is still missed and often thought of at the office.  Many days have passed since that first day at the office.  And there is one more happy twist to this story.  The friend who didn’t like cats now loves and cares for Lucky’s feral mom.  Yep, my friend Joyce is the only one who can get anywhere near Lucky’s mommy.  Her name is Skiddy Kitty and she is loved too, so much so that when Joyce went on vacation, she made sure I took good care of feeding Skitty Kitty. More photos