I'm Tess.  I stopped caring sometime around conception.  I must have had some kind of psychic insight into my future or something.  Truth be told, I shouldn't have even been born.

My mama was one of those thick farm cats whose only purpose was to keep a horse farm free of vermin and pestulance.  But instead of exterminating her afternoons away, she became cross-eyed over a flea-infested Tom who happened to be "just passing through"…..until he realized my mama got free food and board.  Then he decided to hang around.

There were 9 of us.  Mama only had 7 titties…and out of those 7, only 4 of them worked halfway decent.  Because I was born with The Sadness, I moved slower than the others and after a couple of weeks of minor starvation, I was crowned the runt.

I took up residence in the back of an abandoned rabbit hutch while my siblings played around, got fat and spread around an eye infection.  We'd all been given shots and eye-drops, preparing us for some kind of transition out of the hutch.

Mama had gone back to her slinky ways and our pop had meandered off in the middle of the night.  He left a note stating that he just couldn't bring himself to love a broke-tittied woman with 9 kids who needed eye ointment and butt salve twice a day. Who can blame him, really?  We were a sad, god forsaken lot, doomed to be featured as 'FREE TO WHOEVER'.

There were 5 of us left when my soon-to-be People showed up.  A roughly middle-aged womand and her kid.  A very short kid.  I tried to blend in with the rusted chicken wire but I wasn't fast enough.  The kid grabbed me by the throat and drug me through the straw, looking me square in the face while my remaining siblings snickered.  I'd heard about short people and how they liked to choke small animals stupid.

"Dis one!  Dis one!"

The short person had spoken.  They put me in a pink crate with a blankie and two toys that were twice my size.  During the ride to my new home, the short person bequeathed to me a name.  Tess.  Once inside, the woman threw some kibble up under my nose and muttered:

"You crap in this house, so help me gawd, I'll throw you into the open door of a houseful of Mexicans and drive away.  I did it once, I'll do it again."

Somehow I believed her.

I'm Tess.  And if I wasn't depressed before….I sure as heck am now.