The hurt kitten, whom we found about two weeks before, was more active now, but the toes on his bad leg curled under, like a gorilla walking on his fists. It caused me no small amount of grief, but as I didn't know how to build him a shoe or cast, I did nothing. Feeling rather helpless, for days I nagged my mom about his foot (never mind the fact that she was busy working, running a household, and trying to figure out what medicines to feed him to keep him alive).
"I have to think about how to do this," she said. "He needs it all the way up to his ankle."
"Just a simple little shoe," I said. "Anything is better than nothing."
I'm not sure, in retrospect, that his foot was the most important thing to worry about, but apparently I have very precise ideas about how cats should walk. I also wonder now why I begged her to do it but felt helpless to do it myself.
Finally I had had enough of his foot causing me distress. Fuck her! I thought. I'm rebelling!
So I summoned my inner feminist, grabbed some cardboard, cotton and stretchy medical tape, and cobbled something together resembling a shoe with a cardboard sole. It was much easier than I thought it would be; if I had known sooner how simple it would be, it would have saved me a lot of grief.
"See?" I pointed out. "Just a simple little shoe, which prevents him from bending his toes. It's not perfect, but it will do for now."
To my surprise, she praised my efforts. "Good job. Looks like it works."
"I try not to go behind your back like that," I said later, self-consciously. "I normally try not to be 'rebellious.'"
"You're twenty-three years old; how can you possibly be rebellious?" she asked.
I was astonished; I had never thought of it that way before.
"You didn't go behind my back," she continued. "You just took charge."
I was actually shocked to find out that she was not a bit upset, and disgusted to think that it had never occurred to me that I could do it on my own. She should have been more decisive or confident, perhaps...but then again, so should I.
My parents are the easiest people to please that I know. How many times have I heard, growing up, "Your mom's so nice; she gives you so many choices," and "What happens at Auntie's, stays at Auntie's." But I still thought that bandaging the cat was usurping her authority. Four years out of Christian school, and I'm still afraid of disrespecting my parents, who never get offended.
I wish I had discovered this sooner, that it's impossible to rebel at twenty-three, and that cat shoes are surprisingly easy to make, before I had thought "Fuck her," and wasted my energy getting angry for no reason.
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