Well, I feel a lot better about the whole thing this morning. As you may recall, I caught The Kitten in the trap last night about eight. I moved it and her into the garage and she was about as uncomfortable as you'd be if I crammed you into one of those little cages. I soon discovered that she was relatively calm and accepting if she couldn't see anything or anyone. If I had the towel over the cage and the lights out, she was serene and quiet. If she saw me coming in to check on her, she began howling. So I stopped going out to check on her.
This morning, I confirmed with the vet that they could take her today and then I went out to the garage. She was peaceful until she saw me and then began howling. (By the way: Remember I said I put a piece of cardboard down on the floor of the trap? Well, she'd gnawed and clawed it into confetti. It looked like Rip Taylor had gotten into the cage with her and done his act. Talk about cruelty to animals…)
I covered the back seat of my car with newspaper and towels, then placed the trap with her in it on top of all that. I was expecting her to yell and meow all the way to the vet's but once I covered the cage, she quieted down and I didn't hear a peep out of her the entire journey; not until I took the trap out of the car at the vet's office.
She should be ready to come home tomorrow, and they say I should keep her in the trap in the garage for a day or two before returning her to the wilds of my backyard.
While I was filling out forms at the veterinarian's office, I came to the place where I had to fill in the name of the patient. It seemed insensitive or wrong somehow to write down "The Kitten" so I pulled a moniker out of thin air…or more likely, a song Groucho used to sing. Henceforth, The Kitten shall be known as Lydia. That's what I'm going to call her in the future whenever I speak to her. Whether she'll be speaking to me remains to be seen.