That's when I heard "it" ..... the most awful blood curdling noise I had ever heard in my life. I froze in mid stride. Both my toddlers began screaming bloody murder in my ears, clutching onto me for dear life, trying to climb onto my head. I was scared half to death myself, I had no idea what that noise was! Afraid to move, I kind of rolled my eyes around and out of the corner of my left eye I could see my children's half grown yellow kitten hanging by it's tail, which was caught in the door just below the door knob, it's feet a good six inches above solid ground. The kitten was screeching and yowling loud enough to wake the dead. It was flipping around in the air and trying to chew off it's own tail to get loose from the door.

There was nothing I could do to immediately help that poor kitten, my hands were full and I couldn't dump the kids on the ground. All I could do was proceed to my car, which happened to be an old Volkswagon Beetle, complete with purple paint, pink flowers, yellow happy faces and multicolored peace signs.

Anyone who has ever driven a VW knows that they don't have much of a heater, if one at all. This was a particularly cold morning and my little VW had been idling in the driveway for about half an hour, warming up, not that it would do much good.

Hurrying as fast as I could, I temporarily set my oldest toddler in the back seat and strapped my youngest into his infant seat. My mind on the poor screeching kitten, I left my daughter "loose" in my running car, told her to "be good for mommy" and rushed to help the kitten. Both kids were still screaming.

Hurrying up the steps and onto the porch, I opened the back door and the kitten hit the ground in a dead run. In what seemed like a single bound the kitten was up the nearest tree, which happened to be directly above our Retriever. The dog was barking it's head off and the kitten was still yowling and hissing and spitting at me, obviously furious that I hadn't gotten him out of the door sooner. I could see that his tail was bent at a strange angle where it had been caught in the door.

Standing under the tree with my hands on my hips, I was contemplating whether I could get the kitten out of the tree before he fell down to the dog and became lunch, or if it was cold enough for him to freeze to death if I left him and his nasty attitude in the tree all day, when I heard a loud "bang!"

Without looking, I knew it had to be my VW! Sure enough, my daughter had decided to drive "mommy's hippie" right onto our neighbor's deck. Luckily she wasn't hurt and there was no damage to the deck or the car. Exasperated, I went to work, leaving the kitten up in the tree to fend for itself. I never saw it again.