I got my cat at Kroger’s grocery store

When we can’t get to our locally owned grocery store, my husband and I shop at Kroger’s in north Terre Haute. Kroger’s offers you a discount on gasoline, based on your monthly in-store grocery purchases. We’ve been known to save 30 or 40 cents per gallon, easy.

This summer a Sister of Providence that I work with told me she saw a black and white kitten at Kroger’s gas pumps the previous night. She talked to it as she filled her tank but it became frightened and ran under a wooden pallet piled high with wood for sale. She told us this story at a meeting because she knows that I’m an animal lover and she was hoping that the kitten had been rescued.

We were experiencing unseasonably hot days and I admit that I enjoyed my air conditioned drive home. I called my friend Sandy on her wireless phone, told her about the kitten and mentioned that I wanted to drive by Kroger’s and ask about the cat.

I drove to Kroger’s and looked around the gas pumps. To my relief, there was no sign of a cat. I went up to the gas register window and said, “I was just wondering. My friend was here yesterday and saw a kitten. I just wanted to make sure it found a home.”

The employee began shaking his head, “That cat has been here for awhile now, under the wooden pallets. We’ve been trying to feed it and give it water but it’s too scared to come out.” My heart sunk as quickly as the sweat ran off my forehead. Did I mention it was 98 degrees with 100 percent humidity? I asked the man if he knew where it was. He said he’d show me as soon as the customer payment line went down.

Sure enough, the kitten was under a pallet topped with parcels of firewood. I called Sandy, the cat whisperer, and asked her for help. She was 10 minutes away and went to the store for canned cat food, plates and water to help lure the cat to safety.

For the next 45 minutes, we tried capturing the kitten. It was tiny and incredibly thin. Just when we thought we had it cornered, it would escape to the adjacent pallet, covered with heavy bags of salt. Did I mention that it was rush hour? People were gassing up like there was no tomorrow. Cars and trucks, lined up three and four deep at each pump, whizzed by as Sandy (on her knees) and I (crouching) tried to reach the kitten.

It’s amazing how one simple effort can bring people together. Customers were curious as to what we were doing. Had we lost something? Did we need help? We’d explain about the kitten and people would shake their heads, not knowing what to do. And, we didn’t want to inconvenience people any more than we already had (as we arranged and rearranged the pile of salt bags on and off the pallets).

One gentleman filled his gas tank and then offered to help. He had a long piece of metal bumper in the back of his pick-up truck that he positioned under one of the pallets, to cut off one of the kitten’s escape route. And, three rescuers were better than two.

A man and his wife (who worked for Kroger), stopped to help. When we explained the situation, she exclaimed, “Oh, this is the Kroger cat!” Apparently word had gotten around the store that there was a kitten living at the gas pumps outside. Then there were five!

The kitten finally made a run for it and the husband caught the cat. The frightened kitten bit the man on the hand. Not one to be discouraged, the man grasped the kitten again and was able to secure it and hand it over to Sandy, who had garden gloves. I drove my car around and Sandy got into the front seat, still holding the kitten by the nape of its neck. The kitten had a sore on its neck and it was terribly dehydrated. We took it to my house and put it in a kitty carrier, where it could settle down, eat a hearty meal and drink lots of water.

We named the kitten Roger (Kroger without the “K”) but soon changed her name to “Raja.” She was a girl! We took her to the vet and got her shots and check-ups. She initially weighed 1.6 pounds and was estimated to be 5 weeks old. She had a blowfly larvae in her neck which the vet removed (I’d only seen this type of thing on Animal Planet so it was an “Eeeee-oooo” moment for me).

Fast forward five months. Raja is a healthy five-month-old kitten weighing in at 5 pounds. She has a courageous personality and has befriended our three other cats and our 46-pound dog. I tried tirelessly to find Raja a good home, asking friends, co-workers, associates, total strangers, etc., if they’d like a super-neat little black and white kitten. Most of the people I asked tole me they had more cats than Joe and I, so I didn’t garner much sympathy. Meanwhile, Raja has grown on me. I’m now convinced that Raja is a gift from God. God saved her for a special purpose and, at the moment, that purpose is to add laughter, joy and patience to my life and that of my husband. I didn’t want another cat. However, I’m the one that’s been blessed with her bouncy presence. And, I’m hoping once Kroger’s reads this blog post, we’ll get an extra 10 cents off our gas purchase for life.