Forget Marie Kondo--get a kitten

My husband and I were not in the market for a cat, but when a kitten showed up in the alley last October, my son and his wife heard her and brought her up on the back porch.

The tiny tabby with a white chin was obviously used to people. She immediately started climbing all over us.

We know our neighbors and didn’t think she belonged to any of them, but somebody had loved on this baby. She wouldn’t have been so friendly unless she was used to people.

Suspecting she’d been dumped, we fed her and made sure she had a warm bed on the porch if she wanted it. Sure enough, she was back every day for a couple of weeks, meowing for food and petting.

Then she disappeared.

We assumed someone had found her irresistible and taken her in, but she turned up two days later with an injured back leg.

There was no question of leaving her outside.

She lay on a quilt on a chair in the living room but had to be lifted up and down. She didn’t really want to eat and just lay there. She also seemed to have developed a fever.

A Saturday afternoon emergency vet visit and two shots later, she still didn’t perk up. After a couple more days of lying around and not eating, she appeared to be doomed, but slowly she got back on her feet.

We named her Meep, which is the little sound she makes in greeting.

For a while, she still couldn’t get up and down off her favorite chair, and I was afraid her back leg would never be right.

I needn’t have worried.

She’s fine.

By Christmas she could make it onto the dining room table. She found it endless fun to skate the tablecloth into a wad.

She batted a few of the cheap glass ornaments out of their bowl in the middle of the table and onto the wood floor--somehow without breaking one.

From there she chased them around the house, finally smashing them to bits in the living room.

I looked up one day just in time to see her walking along the upper sash of the pantry window. I have no idea how she managed to find a foothold to get up there, but there she was.

One evening she jumped onto an end table and sloshed candle wax everywhere.

Nothing is safe.

Auf Wiedersehen candles. Sayonara knick knacks. Au revoir picture frames. Arrivederci detritus.

My husband is a fan of the popular Japanese organizer, Marie Kondo, and has a couple of her books. Beyond her cool way of folding t-shirts and standing them upright in a drawer for easy access, however, we haven’t taken a lot of her advice to heart.

Meep, however, has lit a fire under us.

Boxes of glass things have been taken to the attic. Candles do not burn unattended and never on her favorite path to the living room windowsill.

Nothing is thoughtlessly tossed on the foyer table anymore because Meep will make it disappear it in short order.

As she finds new places to explore, it’s getting much easier to dust.

Forget Marie Kondo. Meep has fast-tracked the process of de-cluttering in the Smith household.

If your home could be tidier or less cluttered, I highly recommend the feline method. Not only is it fast and efficient, it comes with bonus snuggles.

There are plenty of feline de-cluttering aids available at the local shelter. Take one home today! And if you aren’t in need of de-cluttering, think about adopting a sweet, sedate older cat.

Cat or kitten, you’ll be gaining a wonderful companion and giving a needy animal a home.