Kitten outsmarted me for weeks, but Alex finally joined our family

By David McElroy · December 13, 2022

Over the past few months, there were three kittens behind a restaurant where I often go. One of the restaurant employees adopted the first one when he came up to her months ago. I found out a few days ago that a gold-colored kitten was caught by some young women who adopted him weeks ago, too.

And then there was the elusive little gray tabby who I pursued for at least six or eight weeks. Nobody could touch him.

He was fast. He was smart. One of the kitchen employees wanted to take him home, but he couldn’t get close to him. For weeks, I couldn’t, either.

On Nov. 25, I finally got close enough to him — as he was hiding in a drainage culvert in the parking lot — to snap a photo of him. When I posted that picture on Facebook and explained that I had been trying to catch him, a friend in North Carolina suggested that I get a trap.

A week later, I was still trying to catch him with my haphazard schemes when my friend texted me to say she was sending me a trap. I couldn’t turn that down. She ended up buying one at a chain store with a location about two miles from the restaurant.

The next day, I picked up the trap and headed out to catch a cunning kitten.

The first trap didn’t work. He walked into the trap and started eating — with his paws firmly resting on the trigger plate. The trap simply didn’t work properly.

Fortunately, the bundle that my friend had gotten contained two traps. The smaller one worked. Roughly an hour after trapping started, I had an angry little gray tabby in a trap. If it hadn’t been for Susan, I wouldn’t have had the trap — and I might not’ve ever caught him. (You can see the first photo I got of him, as well as one of him in the trap, at the end of this article.)

But the little guy wasn’t through outsmarting me. When I got him home, I removed him from the trap and made a short video to introduce him to my Facebook friends. Then I went to put him into the large dog crate where he was going to live until I could get him to the vet.

He slipped out of my arms and escaped into a part of my house with a lot of junk that needs to be sorted (and probably thrown away). I was afraid to move too much around — for fear of hurting him.

For two days, he eluded me — inside my own house. I left the trap out again. After two days, he was finally hungry enough to get caught by the trap. And that’s when everything changed.

He made his first trip to the vet the next day. He’s only 4 pounds, but the vet estimates he’s at least 6 months old, possibly as old as 8 months. He’s going to be small.

Over the last week, he has slowly transformed himself from a scared stray into a loving and confident member of the family. Thomas isn’t thrilled about accepting him as a little brother. Lucy has mostly steered clear of him.

I finally named him Alex. It’s short for Alexander. He’s so confident that he seems like a little conqueror who’s come into the household to take over. It eventually seemed natural to name him for Alexander the Conqueror.

When I put Alex and Thomas together, Alex wants to reach out and embrace his big brother, but Thomas won’t allow much of that yet. And even though Lucy has mostly steered clear, they got close on my bed Tuesday evening — and Alex eventually pounced at her tail once.

A startled Lucy took off, not knowing what to do about the little banshee who was accosting her.

Most of the cats I’ve had over the last 15 years have been too feral to know how to play, but this cat is quickly picking up how to play. He’s amazing. He’s confident. And he’s come to be the new king.

I was already pursuing this little fellow well before I knew that Merlin’s death was imminent, but especially after Merlin died, I was very happy to welcome Alex. Thomas was upset to lose his only real friend when we lost Merlin, so I thought it would be good for him to have a new friend.

Alex has been with us for only 10 days, but it’s already starting to seem as though Alex might be the new king to replace the recently deceased king. He has the same air of royalty and confidence that always made Merlin special — so I like to think he’s continuing a tradition.

I hope that Thomas and Alex will soon be friends. I hope that Lucy will become comfortable playing with Alex and they’ll start napping together. But whether those things work out the way I want or not, we already have an amazing addition to the family.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a kitten or puppy in the household — and it feels very right. The confidence and rambunctiousness of youth is infectious.

I think Alex is going to be a good influence on all of us, including me. As I’ve said before, they rescue us just as much as we rescue them. It’s been a joy to have this little boy brighten up the house. I’ve needed him, even though I didn’t know it.

Welcome home, Alex.

Note: The first photo below is the first picture I was able to get of Alex, on Nov. 25. The next is from eight days later, Dec. 3, when I used a trap to catch him. The third photo is about a week later, when Alex spontaneously reached out to put a paw around his new big brother’s neck. You can see more photos of him on our Instagram page.

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I haven’t posted anything new in my YouTube series about narcissism in the last couple of weeks, so some people have been asking about it. There’s nothing wrong and I’ll be back soon. The issue is simply a technical problem because of a piece of equipment that died. Here’s a brief video I posted on YouTube to explain.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

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