SUSAN LOESCH
CATS IN THE STACKS

A day without Alex here with me on the job is…just not fun. I left him early this morning at the office of his vet, Dr. Cole Bierbaum. As part of a complete physical for his new job it was discovered that Alex needed some teeth pulled.

We weighed him: 8.4 pounds. “Has he had anything to eat this morning?” I told them no.

I know he was hungry by then, but it was important not to eat before surgery. When the vet tech came out to get him I told her that this was Alex, Big Footsie’s successor.

Her eyes widened. “Alex sure has some big footsies to fill, doesn’t he?” He does!

When my 4th graders came in they asked for Alex. “You mean you left him there? He has to wait for you? That’s a long time to be there.”

It sure is, and the hours are dragging.

This same group of students came in several days ago.

“We have something for you, Ms. Loesch,” they said, as one student stretched his hands out, cupping a crumpled piece of notebook paper with something wrapped inside. I hesitated. Just the day before I’d received a huge grasshopper, presented in much the same way!

But this was no grasshopper, nor anything else alive. There nestled in the paper were 4 little cat figures, including a black Footsie one, and a handful of change, nickels and quarters and pennies. The notebook paper was a picture of a black cat they had drawn in the dorm the night before. And a note that said, “We are sorry your cat died. We will always miss him.”

I told them that my rescue group, FuRR, has renamed our Coffee Fund, which helps pay for vet care for cats whose owners are not able to do it themselves. The new name is Footsie’s Coffee Fund, and their donation will a part of that. That brought big smiles all around.

And Alex came through his surgery just fine!