We just had a “Star Wars” day at our library. I’m checking out a father of two girls and talking to the girl nearest.

Me: “Did you have fun today?”

Little Girl: “Yep!”

Me: “Did you learn how to use the Force?”

Little Girl: “Uh-huh.”

Me: “Are you going to be a Jedi Knight when you grow up?”

Little Girl: “Well… first I’m gonna be a snail, and then I’m gonna be a Jedi Knight!”

This story is part of the Star Wars Day: May The Fourth roundup!

Read the next Star Wars Day: May The Fourth roundup story!

Read the Star Wars Day: May The Fourth roundup!

My husband is from England and I live in the USA, so after we get married, we begin the green card process. After about six months, we receive our interview invitation. When the day comes, we are seated with a stern-looking, middle-aged immigration agent who conducts our interview. We’re feeling a bit stiff and tense when he gets to the list of obligatory criminal background questions he has to ask my husband.

Agent: “Have you ever engaged in prostitution?”

Husband: “No.”

He then gets a look on his face that I know very well; he’s struggling not to make a joke. I try to signal, “DON’T YOU DARE!” with my eyes, but…

Husband: “I don’t think I’d be very good at it.”

There is a moment of silence. Then, the agent starts laughing.

Agent: “Fair enough! Let’s move on!”

The tension lifted, the agent finished the interview and told us to “have lots of babies,” and my husband is now on his way to becoming a permanent resident and then a US citizen!

When I was young, I didn’t have a father, so my grandpa ended up filling that role. My grandpa had a very “sink or swim” attitude to teaching me things. The biggest example is when he taught me to ride horses when I was seven.

Grandpa plops me in the saddle, hands me the reins, and sticks my feet in the stirrups.

Grandpa: “Pull this one to go left.” *Tugs the left rein* “Pull this one to go right.” *Tugs the right rein* “Pull both to stop. Kick him to go. Got it?”

Me: “Got it.”

Grandpa: “Good.”

He takes his hat off, swats the pony’s hindquarters, and yells after the now galloping pony.

Grandpa: “Figure out the rest on your own!”

Our family had planned a trip to see family in another state. Unfortunately, my husband had to work so he couldn’t go with us after all.

I was telling a friend in that state that we would have to cancel the trip. Unexpectedly, her husband — a high school friend of mine — volunteered to pick up my sons and me if my husband could drive us halfway there.

We made the switch. My friend and I were chatting as we neared an exit. My middle son asked if we could stop for a bathroom break. We did. As we were getting drinks, my friend whispered, “He’s asked to stop at almost every exit. Is he marking his territory?”

The office I work at has normal daytime hours, then at a certain time switches over to emergencies only for the night, then we close for an hour before the day shift comes in. Night shift doesn’t see day shift except in the evenings. Overnight, we run with a skeleton crew: one tech, one front desk, and one doctor. I work night shift.

One night, I’m helping a patient in from the parking lot when we hear an ungodly scream. It sounds like the loudest, angriest cat scream I have ever heard. I turn around, and sitting in the middle of the parking lot is a tiny kitten, eight weeks old at the most. While I watch, it screams again.

I keep pushing the hurt dog on his stretcher to get him in the door, and then I let the front desk know there is a kitten outside, so let’s leave the door open and see if it comes inside. We can’t go out and get it because if you try and chase them they might run into the road or get scared and run off to who knows where.

A few hours later, we hear screaming from the side of the building. The kitten is sitting in the window staring into the treatment room. We open the window and it bolts.

Around midnight, I’m taking the trash out the back door and there is the kitten, sitting just out of reach and screaming. I set a feral cat trap in the back lot and put a note on the treatment board to check the trap for success every hour.

There’s no sign of it after midnight, and the next evening, when I come in for the day shift, I ask and they tell me they think the kitten ran off, because none of them saw any sign of it. As soon as the day shift leaves, we hear the screaming again.

This goes on for almost a week. Everyone on night shift low key hates this little jerk of a cat and the day shift thinks we are all crazy because they haven’t seen any trace of it. Finally, our medical director gives us permission to actively try and catch it since the screaming is bothering clients; if it runs away and never comes back, so be it.

The next night, our tech brings a bucket outside with her when she takes out the trash and throws it over the kitten. We finally got the jerk! We throw him, still screaming, into a kennel and label the cage “Howler Kitten.” We’ll do an exam and vaccines and everything we need to do to get Howler adopted later. Due to emergencies, we don’t get a chance to do anything to him that night.

The next evening, I come in and the first thing I do is go check on the prisoner. Somebody has drawn a line through “Howler” and written in “Sweetie”. I talk to the day shift and they explain that he hasn’t screamed all day, he’s the sweetest little thing, and they don’t understand why we were so annoyed with his meows; they are so soft and cute. He never screams again the whole time he is with us up until we find him his forever home. Night shift still low-key hates this cat for making us look like liars.

Six months later, it’s a slow night and I’m raking the parking lot and I hear the same scream. My first thought is, “Dang it, he ran away from his new home and came back to torture us again.” I turn, and deja vu, there’s a kitten the same color that looks eight weeks old. My next thought is, “We are not doing this again!”

I drop the rake and charge towards the kitten. I chase it down the street until it darts under a parked car and screams again. I reach into the wheel well and grab it by the scruff, and then I take my hissing, screaming captive back to the office. We put her in the kennel, and this time we take a video of her screaming at the food we gave her… while she is eating it. I did not know it was possible to scream and swallow at the same time, but she does it.  

Night shift names the new kitten Alouatta, the genus that howler monkeys belong to; we looked it up. The next evening, her name has been changed to Pickles, but they change it back after I show them the video. 

We are convinced they are half-siblings at least, and that somewhere out there is a feral cat telling her kittens that the easy way to get food is to “go to the humans and scream” while neglecting to mention that after screaming you have to get close to the humans. Neither of them ever made that scream sound again. We are still waiting to see if another sibling shows up; it’s been a year now so maybe there won’t be any more.