In the beginning...

It can be said that the day a man is born will shape his personality forever.  You need to look no further than me for proof of this.  Few would miss the irony in the circumstances of my birth.  For when this meek black kitten entered the world on April Fool's Day, it was no laughing matter.

It was a night that no respectable kitty would venture out on.  The teeming rain was as hostile as the world that I was about to be born into.  I first took breath on that dark and gloomy night in a gutter on the wrong side of town.  My mother was just another crack ho who didn't have any idea who my father was.  Sadly, my mother had no interest in raising me.  As soon as she had delivered me she handed me off to a baby broker in return for a carton of Winnie Blues and a six-pack.

Where I ended up next will probably make some of my friends hate me.  That's right - I took up residence at the local pet shop.  It wasn't that bad really.  I had three square meals a day and I had lots of new friends to talk to, not that I remember many of them now.  They told me about a magical couple named Brangelina who would adopt a kitten from every country in the world.  It was said that they provide their kitties with an all-you-can eat buffet and you could do whatever you wanted whenever you wanted.  How I prayed that I would be adopted by Brangelina.

Days went by and I sat there waiting.  I waited and I waited, and then I waited some more.  Some of my friends left and some new friends arrived.  And still I waited.  Then, when I least expected it, a hand reached into my cage and lifted me up.  At first I was excited - Brangelina had finally come to take me home - but then my eyes adjusted to the reality of the situation.  This was not Brad or Angelina who was cradling me in her arms.  This was a mere mortal! 

"Noooo!!!" I cried as I shoved into a box and carried out of the pet shop that I had called home.  "What if Brangelina come to pick me up and I am not here?"  But no one listened as I was bundled into a car for the long ride to my new furever home.  "Goodbye," I screamed out to my friends.  "I will never forget you."  I tried to put on a brave face, but inside I feared what would happen to me.  Would I be happy or was this the cruelest April Fool's Day joke of all time?