Elle had been wanting a kitten all her life. She lived with her grandfather and grandmother during her college years and her grandfather had a strict 'no pet' policy. Now that she was out of college and on her own with a good paying job in Ripley, WV, she decided she would start her family - with a cute, white, fluffy-wuffy kitten Elle named, 'Button'.
Elle knew owning a kitten would change her life. Little did she realize how much.
It began with buying whole milk to feed Button - the best whole milk at the store. Gallons of it. She then purchased a deluxe, self actuating, (quiet) motorized kitty-litter box, with privacy cover. After that she started buying shopping cart after shopping cart of toys, cat food, and snacks. And it wasn't all the same brand or flavor. Rarely did she ever buy the same thing, twice.
She thought maybe she was just obsessing on her new kitten, but she really realized something was wrong when even her friends and family began bringing gifts for Button. "I thought it was just me, but then my Grandfather starting bringing kitty toys over every day. That's when I started doing a little investigating."
What she discovered was something known in Veternary Journals as, "Bellus Catulus Infirmitate" or in layman's terms, "Cute Kitten Syndrome".
Cute kittens are unique in the animal kingdom in that they are very intelligent and mind-numbingly cute. "That combination can become deadly," said noted Feline Expert and Author, Dr. Felix Garfield. "What we've found is that some individuals can become so mind controlled by their cute kitten, they can even forget to properly bath or feed themselves. I studied one sad case of a man who in the final stages of the illness, had taken up licking as a method of cleaning. Hairy gentleman that he was, he died of hairballs."
Elle told us, "The only known cure is to either let the kitten go, which I'm NOT going to do, or let it grow out of the kitten stage. Cats just aren't as cute and the effect wears off after they lose that. I'll still love my Button, but I can't wait for her to stop being able to control my family and me.
"I'm looking for Cute Kitten Support Group, but they are hard to find, cause there is still a lot of social stigma attached to this sickness. People don't understand. Especially Dog People."
This reporter asked Button for a comment before I left, but she just batted at the microphone and... awwwww... she's sooo cuuuuuute. Wook at the widdle, biddy... um, ahem.
Never mind.
