Playing With Kittens

Summer afternoon meeting family and playing with kittens. And an embarrassing evening.

Word count:498

David and I had only been dating about a month when he took me to a summer family gathering at his Aunt Ann’s house. I was still at the stage where meeting one relative at a time would have been plenty, but that afternoon it seemed I was going to meet most of his family at once.

It was a hot July day, and when we pulled up in front of Aunt Ann’s house, I stared at it. The place looked so old that I wasn’t convinced it was safe to walk inside. It seemed as though a strong wind might finally convince it to fall over. David wasn’t concerned. He had probably been going there most of his life.

His family was everywhere. People gathered outside talking and laughing while food cooked nearby. I was introduced to aunt after uncle after cousin, trying desperately to remember names that disappeared almost as quickly as I heard them. Everyone was friendly, but being the new girlfriend surrounded by an entire family was overwhelming.

Eventually, David and I escaped to the shade of a huge old oak tree. That was where we discovered the kittens.

There was an entire litter of tiny babies, and I forgot all about being nervous. We sat on the ground and let those kittens climb all over us. They crawled across our legs, climbed into our laps, and tumbled over one another while we petted and cuddled them. We laughed and played with them like children.

For a while, it was one of those perfect summer afternoons you remember years later simply because you were young, happy, and enjoying being together.
Unfortunately, we weren’t the only creatures beneath that oak tree.
After we left Aunt Ann’s, one of us discovered a tick.

Then another.
And another.

I hate bugs. I don’t mean I merely dislike them. Put a bug on me and any dignity I possess can disappear remarkably fast. David learned this important fact about me that afternoon.

The real problem was that we had been sitting on the ground for quite a while, and the ticks had apparently taken advantage of the opportunity. Some had crawled underneath our clothes.

We had only been dating a month, so inspecting one another for ticks certainly hadn’t been part of our plans. Suddenly, however, modesty had to compete with the possibility of having a tick attached somewhere we couldn’t see.

So we checked each other. And yes, we found a few. It was awkward and embarrassing, but also hysterically funny once we realized how ridiculous the situation was.

Nothing makes two people get comfortable quickly quite like saying, “Hold still. I think there’s another one.”

That afternoon David learned something about the woman he was dating. I could handle meeting his family, cuddle kittens, and even survive Aunt Ann’s questionable old house.

But bugs? Absolutely not.
Fortunately, my reaction didn’t scare David away.

The ticks eventually left.

David stuck around.

Prompt ▶︎

Prompt: Island In The Sun by Weezer.

Word count 498