When I was in the 3rd grade a box of kittens was left on our church doorstep. After begging to keep one and crying all through church (I had been asking for a cat my whole life!) my parents finally agreed. We took the gray striped one, and I named her Dimples.

I loved her. My mom even brought her into my 3rd grade class with neon pink, yellow and green ribbons around her neck to show her off.

She was kind of a crazy cat. She would stand growling on a half wall by the front door and attack visitors that came in (why didn't we put her in a room when we had company?). People were definitely scared of her. The only person she liked was the one person that didn't like her. My dad. He would hold her and tell her nicely that he was going to throw her into the fire place, and she would just stare up at him lovingly and purr.

Scary-crazy-cat-who-only-liked-my-dad or not. I loved her. And she hated me. But I didn't care. I would stick her in my shirt so she couldn't get away. I would close all of the doors in the hallway at night and chase her down and grab her, and then I would tuck all of my sheets in so that when I put her in my bed she couldn't get away, no matter how much she hissed or growled. She attacked me a lot. I would dress her up, take pictures with her, all fueling her hatred for me.

But that didn't stop me from bringing her in the shower with me. Literally.

My shower routine went like this:

1. Turn on the water.

2. Set Dimples up on back of toilet and turn on the radio.

3. Wrap myself in a towel and pretend it's a gorgeous strapless dress.

4. Dance in front of the mirror.

5.  Dance some more.

6.  Wrap Dimples in a towel.

7. Get in the shower holding towel wrapped Dimples, shielding her from water, assuming she loves this even though her pupils have widened and are completely black.

8. Dimples attacks me.

9. Let her go.

10. Shower.

There is one time that Dimples hanging out with me in the shower was threatened, and it was my fault. We had a small, flat, wooden duck that hung on the wall. On the duck was a little half circle shelf that stuck out. It hung between the toilet where Dimples was and the mirror in which I danced. On that shelf sat a small terracotta pot with a little fake plant in it.

So one time I was dancing and my dancing got a little insane. My arms flailing in dance mode, I hit the shelf, spring boarding the pot through the air and against the wall, breaking it. My mom heard it and angrily ran to the bathroom door. "That's it! Dimples is not going in there any more!" She assumed it was Dimples that had broken the pot.

I could have let Dimples take the fall, but that would mean hanging out in the bathroom for my 10-step shower routine alone. And I didn't want that. So I blurted out "I WAS DANCING AND I HIT THE POT AND I BROKE IT BECAUSE OF MY WILD DANCING! IT'S NOT DIMPLES' FAULT"

I don't remember my mom's actual reaction, but I know I got to keep Dimples in there. Yay!

Dimples lived a very long time, like, 11 or 12 years, and had lots of love and all the people food she could eat. But, sadly, she eventually started having seizures and progressively got sick (and more scary) over the years. My mom had to secretly put her down when I was in college. Meaning when I was home from college one year I caught my mom running out the door, crying, with Dimples in a carrier. I was like "what are you doing?!" and my mom was like "putting her down!" and she ran out the door and drove away. In my mom's defense, Dimples needed to be put out of her epileptic, really sick, crazy cat misery, but none of us were able to do it. So my mom was basically the only one brave enough. Still...