So, when my maternal grandmother died, we had to find loving, permanent homes for all five of her cats because otherwise she would have risen from the grave to kill the entire family. We took in Chloe because Chloe was my grandmother’s favorite, and she made my mom promise to look after her. Now my mother treats Chloe like her third child, and the cat is basically plastered to her 24/7 when she isn’t hiding from some imagined enemy like the dustbuster or my dad’s footsteps.
Anyway, we wound up giving the rest of the cats to this couple that runs a joint called Kitty Korner. They try to find loving homes for all the cats they take in, but will care for the unadoptables (read: assholes) for the rest of their lives. That’s great, because one of the cats we gave to these poor women was Tobey. I have no idea why my grandmother ever adopted Tobey. He was a huge schmuck. The most handsome orange tomcat you ever saw, and he loved to crawl in your lap. But if you ever tried to touch him, he would switch immediately into Kill Mode and you could say goodbye to your hand. Needless to say, having him in your lap was awkward. It was like holding a bomb.
Kitty Korner sends us detailed letters every year to give us updates on how Tobey’s doing. Basically, they are status reports on how much of a douche Tobey is and continues to be. These women are saints. I guess they really like cats, because these letters are like a full page of single-spaced text. But more or less, they amount to:
2003: Tobey has a real colorful personality! But, uh, we don’t think he’s suited for adoption yet
2004: Nope, still not suited for adoption
2005: I think this is pretty much a lost cause
2006: WTF
2007: Tobey is trying to kill us and every other cat in the house
2008: Tobey is still trying to kill us and every other cat in the house
2009: Tobey is a vicious dictator and can only find pleasure in the subjugation of other organisms
BUT!!!! The past few years, Tobey has apparently been making steady improvement. And in our most recent letter, we have been informed that he is no longer doing things like venturing upstairs expressly to beat the living shit out of the other cats at Kitty Korner. He will also let you pet him, and when he’s had enough he’ll give a warning nip instead of removing your limb. In fact, Tobey, at a ripe old age of 14, is ready for a new home! With an experienced cat owner, comes the necessary caveat, and like… no kids. At all. Ever. Or other cats, probably. But at least he’s no longer a psychopath.
WE GOT ANOTHER LETTER FROM KITTY KORNER AND WE THOUGHT TOBEY HAD FINALLY KICKED THE BUCKET BUT IN FACT HE HAS FOUND A NEW HOME, AT AGE 16, WITH AN ELDERLY MAN WHO RECENTLY LOST HIS OWN CAT.
I MAY CRY.
2/1/2016: old man Tobey still loving his forever home :’)
Amazing
The adoption story to end all adoption stories. Hey, does Kitty Korner have a Kickstarter anywhere?
The outpouring of love for this post is amazing! I’m going to cry at the office.
They do not have a Kickstarter, however, as a no-kill foster home run exclusively through volunteer work, they always welcome donations and you also have the ability to sponsor a cat. You’ll get detailed photos and status reports on your kitty, and should he or she get a happy ending like Tobey, you’ll be the first to know!
My grandmother was a card-carrying crazy cat lady until the day she died, and she was a big supporter of Kitty Corner. The women who run it are as devoted to rescue animals as she was her entire life. Wherever she is now, she’d be humbled to know just how many people were touched by Tobey’s comeback story.
Sad update everyone, Tama recently passed away… An estimated 3,000 people, including railway officials, attended Tama the cat’s funeral on Sunday, days after she died of heart failure aged 16. [x]
For those who haven’t read articles about it, the local shrine elevated her to a god. She’s now the Eternal Stationmaster and patron god of the station.
Beautiful.
Now I’m crying thanks
and a new cat was hired right?
yep! her name is Nitama (essentially ”second tama” or “tama II”) and she served under Tama as an apprentice before being appointed her deputy
she works very hard
Everytime this crosses my dash, I reblog. It is the law.
Law
I’m crying at 11pm over train cats
Nitama, already now a mature cat (born 2010), has a protege named Yontama (fourth Tama, b. 2016). There is no information available for either the physical befellment or tragic self-disgrace which has removed Santama from contention.
^Nitama majestic, and below with Yontama
Yontama.
a legacy
okay but actually what happened to santama (or sun-tama-tama, which is her name because it’s a pun on santama) was that she was basically sent to train for the position in okayama and they liked her so much they refused to send her back
“Sun-tama-tama” (a pun off of “Santama”, lit. “third Tama”) was a calico cat sent for training in Okayama. Sun-tama-tama was considered as a candidate for Tama’s successor, but the Okayama Public Relations representative who had been caring for Sun-tama-tama refused to give the cat up writing, “I will not let go of this child, she will stay in Okayama.” [25]
As of September 2018, Sun-tama-tama is working as the stationmaster in Naka-ku, Okayama and appears occasionally on Tama’s Twitter account.
A friend from out of town (hi, Holly!) is visiting Oakland for a few weeks, which gave us the perfect excuse to visit somewhere I’ve been dying to go — the cat cafe! Oakland Cattown Cafe is associated with a shelter, so the money you pay to visit the cats is actually a tax-deductible donation to the shelter. Holly made our reservations online, so they were $10 each (it’s $5 if you drop in and…
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