Tag Archives: childhood

I have a newfound love for grey cats. Maybe it’s because I never had one or knew any growing up, and now I have Persephone, who is super cute, and then there’s my mom’s cat, Zeus, who is the prissiest fluffball ever. More likely, though, it’s just because grey is one of my favorite colors right now. Whatever the case, grey cats are awesome and I just want to share my love of them with the world.

For my birthday, I ordered myself a Pusheen plush, because it is totally age-appropriate for a 24-year-old. Yesterday I got her in the mail, which was super exciting. Persy was sleeping soundly on the couch, so I felt the need to annoy her and stuck Pusheen in her face.

See how annoyed she is? Her angry face is so cute.

I was all, “Look at my cute little grey beebs!” when it occurred to me that I was, in fact, leaving out another grey kitty in my life. I grabbed my childhood Tom Kitten plush and posed him and Pusheen beside Persy for a photoshoot.

I have deemed them the Grey Cat Mafia. It’s just a small mafia right now—they are working on increasing their numbers (by which I mean that I am obsessing over and wanting to acquire more grey cats). It’s also an adorable mafia, not a criminal one that will get you killed. Well, hopefully not, anyway. You might die from cuteness.

Speaking of Tom Kitten, I’ve been meaning to write up a post about him, so why not talk about him now? Tom Kitten, if you didn’t know, is a character from The Tale of Tom Kitten (no, really?) by Beatrix Potter, author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, which you’ve probably heard of.

I’ve had my Tom Kitten plush since I was very young, and I’ve slept with him just about every night since. Yes, that’s right—I am 24 and still sleep with a stuffed animal. What can I say? He makes a good pillow. And I might have some dependency issues… ahem.

As you can see from the picture above, Tom is quite worn. His fur is matted, his eyes are scraped, his nose is losing its felt, and his whiskers have had to be trimmed due to gnarliness. He’s also naked, which is okay, since he’s a cat. I still have his clothes, but I’m not really one to dress up my cats.

I’ve seen newer versions of the plush where he’s orange, but I’ve yet to see the same grey one as mine. Wanting to find one just out of curiosity, I decided to go upon a mighty quest (a.k.a. looked through Google Images) and happened to come across one on eBay. I guess it’s a collector’s item now, because it was like $70 or $80. You could say my Tom is way too scruffy to be worth so much, but in fact he’s worth even more—to me, at least. He means a lot to me and I know that one day I’ll have to put him away, which really kind of bothers me.

Here is a picture of how he looks now (after being loved and squeezed to death for 20+ years) and how he looks brand new:

My Tom is so scruffy! It really does make me sad to think that I’ll have to give him up some day. Being a grownup kind of sucks sometimes. :(

Then again, he is like the Godfather of the Grey Cat Mafia, and I don’t think he’s ready to retire any time soon. First he needs to find some recruits. I think Grape, the most adorable kitten ever, should be the first.

How can something be so damn cute?!