The Tiki Chronicles Part II: Tiki goes to College By Francesca Finch Bochner
The second chapter in a series about Tiki, an older cat with myriad health problems (including FIV, a feline version of HIV). Despite his various handicaps, Tiki is still alive today, and continues to lead an extraordinary life.
D
artmouth College; home of brilliant academics, cutting edge arctic science research, an excellent hockey team, Animal House and, in March of 2010, my little tabby cat Tiki. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not a rule breaker. In the rare event that I do break a rule, I am usually very bad at it. If an authority figure even looks at me twice I will rush to tell them what I did wrong. However, for Tiki’s sake I was willing to take a walk on the wild side. Rumor has it, at Dartmouth, if you are caught with a pet in your room, the school will suspend you. While the custodial staff does not clean individual rooms, campus security can go anywhere, at any time. Furthermore, each room is a reverberation chamber, anyone walking down the hallway can easily hear a cat meow. Tiki has a particular penchant for vocalizing every emotion (hunger is a loud, demanding screech;
happiness a rumbling purr; “Welcome Home” a series of short meows); I was understandably concerned that we’d be caught. During my senior spring semester, I had a generously sized single on the fourth floor of the oldest building on campus. I set the whole room up as a perfect home for Tiki, a chair under the window to lie on, his litter box was under my desk, and his food and water next to my bed so I could see if they needed refilling. The only problem was that we were right next to the bathroom, and every morning around 7:00 the custodian would spend a fair amount of time on the other side of my wall. All well and good, but 7:00AM was just when Tiki would rise and stretch with an earth-shaking screech, his breakfast needed to be served. The first few months in my dorm were heavenly. I would feed him in the morning and pray the custodian was hard of hearing. Then I’d be off to class,
pick up lunch and come back to feed him again. In the evenings I would always use Tiki as an excuse to cut out early, figuring that snuggling with my elderly orange cat trumped playing pong into the wee hours. My friends rolled their eyes at me for being so animal crazy, but they all ended up falling in love with the little guy. At the beginning of the term I would rush home to feed him and then have to go back out to see friends. Soon, I had girlfriends who specifically asked to come see him, and one who would bring over turkey from the dining halls. I have never seen Tiki happier than when he was at college. He got to be around people every few hours, and in between napped on his chair in the sun. I did all of my homework in my room while he sat right next to me. Every Monday night I would pull an all-nighter to finish the chapters Continued NEXT PAGE
Continued Next Page
Spring 2015
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