Dirty knees.
Francesco and I were driving from Cassino to Atina when I looked over and saw a kitten, maybe three weeks old, sitting bewildered in the middle of a parking lot driveway. I screamed “stop!” And jumped out of the car. While running over, a family (of dipshits) drove over the kitten and stopped to wait for traffic. I ran to their car and looked under. No sign of the kitten, but I could hear it mewing. I jumped up and screamed “PUT YOUR CAR IN PARK!” They did. And stayed in the car because they were seriously weird.
I’m on the ground in Cassino, desperately looking under their car for the kitten. A few men come running over to see what I’m doing, flailing on the concrete. “There’s a kitten somewhere!” I tell them. I scream at Francesco to “Come and help you jackass!” because he’s still in the car, watching. He gets out of his mothers Fiatt and comes over. We find it, it’s climbed up into the wheel well and is hanging out there. After 10 minutes of rolling around on the ground, I finally reach the kitten and pull it out. The people inside of the car are still sitting there, with expressions like they’ve just taken a heavy dose of morphine. One is eating a sandwich. I’m holding the kitten and tell the people in the car to go. The driver shrugs and pulls away. One of the men who helped says that he knows where the mamma cat is, “she lives right there,” he points, “give me the kitten and I’ll take it to her.” I shake my head no. “I’m taking it to the vet.” Francesco says “give it back to the mom.” And they pry the kitten, who I already love and have quietly named bob, from my hands. The old man walks away with Bob, and I get into the car with Francesco.
My knees are filthy and I realize I have Feral kitten germs on my hands. “Ew,” I stare at them. I turned to Francesco, “we saved a kitten!”
And he says, “next time you jump out of the car, shut the goddamn door.”
