I am a cat. More specifically I am a nine-year-old male cat. My people say I have been neutered. I’m not sure what that means, but just that something in my life is missing. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t live with my people. She says I was less than eight weeks old when I showed up in their backyard. I do know it was love at first sight for the large, long-legged animal who spotted me first. The man said that animal was a dog named Fred. I just know Fred used his big tongue to wash away the dirt I had from my travels. He washed me from head to the tip of my tail even cleaning out the things that hid inside my ears. I knew he wasn’t my mother, but it didn’t matter. Fred made me feel safe in a way that only my mother had before.

The people picked me up out of the wet grass and took me inside the house. The lady scurried around to find me something yummy to eat. I hadn’t eaten anything in a day or two, so it really didn’t have to be yummy. I would have eaten a dry crust of bread, but of course she did much better than that. She talked about mixing a couple of pieces of Fred’s kibble with a little bit of milk and then something from a can called tuna. I dove into it with my whole face. Fred sat and watched me. He never tried to take my food, so again he made me feel safe. After I ate, he let me curl up close to him. I was so tired, but knew everything was going to be all right.

After my nap, the lady put me in water with smelly stuff she said was shampoo. She told the man I had hundreds of things she called fleas. The water was warm, but I can’t say I liked it. Out of the water, she wrapped me in a towel and rubbed my whole body. The towel was much nicer than the water had been. Fred, once again, made sure I was clean to his standards by washing me with his tongue all over. I liked that I would smell more like Fred than that shampoo stuff. I wish he could’ve done a better job of getting those fleas off of me. I really didn’t want to be put in that water ever again.

The next day the lady took me to some place called the vet. There were a couple of ladies there who did all kinds of things that I didn’t like. One of them put something big in my butt. It hurt and I tried to tell them it did. I yelled as loud as I could, but they held me tight for what felt like forever. When they took it out, they said I had a temperature. I told them I wanted to go home to Fred. They didn’t listen. Another lady put tubes in her ears and then put a cold disc in different places over my body. When she took the tubes out of her ears, she pulled on my ears and poked something in there. Next, she put her hands around my face. She flashed light into my eyes, before she said, “We’ll put him on antibiotics. This eye is clearly infected. It is so swollen, I’m sure it will rupture. When that happens, you will need to bring him back for me to remove the eye completely.” My lady looked sad, but I told them I didn’t want that to happen.

The lady with the tubes left the room, and my lady carried me to a counter where a fluffy black and white cat sat looking at me. That cat just studied me like I was some sort of a bug. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me. Another lady sat at a table that was lower than the counter. She wrote things on a piece of paper the other ladies had handed her. She asked my lady questions. That is when I learned I was to be named, “Dr. Murphy Jones.” My lady said that I was named for an actor – James Garner. Murphy Jones was a character he played in a movie called Murphy’s Romance. It seems Mr. Garner had just passed away. My lady said she loved that movie. I hoped she would let me sit on her lap while she watched that movie. This whole discussion made me feel very important. I liked knowing I had people, a friend like Fred, and the name.

As we made the trip back to the house where we now all live my lady whispered to me that she would find a way to make the swelling go down in my eye. I’m not sure I will like what she plans to do to me, but it has to be better than having the vet lady take out my eye.