How We Came to Live with a Mouse

Not to be one of those people who is always talking about her pets, but Mashka did absolutely the funniest thing last month.

She grew balls.
Little hairy kitten balls.

For two days of denial, Kira called Mashka “he” while I steadfastly refused to acknowledge the little kitty testicles. I couldn’t even look at him for a bit--I felt so betrayed, like this was knowledge he perhaps should have disclosed. But no, he just went about chasing tinfoil and licking the faucet without dropping this balls-bomb on us and making us look stupid.

But I finally came to accept that we have a little boy in the house.

Still, he needed a name change, because “Mashka” is “little Maria” in Russian, so after about a week of me calling him “Balls” we decided on “Mmishka,” Russian for “mouse,” because it wasn’t such a change, because he really is very tiny for his age, and because now we have a “Koshka” and a “Mmishka” or “Cat” and “Mouse” in Russian.

I chose not to include a picture of kitten testes. You are welcome.