Rodger found this little girl on a Saturday evening on January 18, 2003, on his way home from picking up our barbecue supper.  It was dusk, very cold -- in the upper 40s -- with the temperature headed down to the low 30s, which is very cold for us here in Florida.  Hunched over on the side of a very busy, heavily-traveled road was this tiny little black baby.  Rodger, who is a pretty observant driver, just so happened to see a little form at the edge  of the road.  He stopped his truck, saw the little kitten and had no qualms about making the oncoming traffic stop and wait for him.  He scooped it up, placing the kitten inside his jacket to try to give instant warmth.  Rodger called me on his cell phone when he resumed his journey home, informing me that he had quite a little surprise for me -- a black kitten approximately 4 weeks old.

That first night consisted of dealing with bouts of diarrhea and obvious signs of tapeworms.  I confined the little black kitten in the cat carrier in the spare bedroom, away from the other cats to protect them and to keep her in one place.   She devoured some baby food that first night and the next morning; after that, she was chowing down on regular cat food.  That Monday, I took her to our vet's where she was treated for tapeworms and pronounced a healthy little kitten.  I was also informed at that time that she was a "he," which will be explained in greater detail later.

It didn't take long at all for the other cats to notice this little stranger.  In the beginning, the Trifecta and the Duo would approach her and start hissing, not pleased at all with this intruder.  The older ones - Pookie and Cyclops and Snookums (who has an indiscriminate dislike of  all other cats anyway) just ignored her.  After several days, however, the hissing ceased and some of them, particularly Skunk, decided that perhaps this little girl who presented no threat, and who mostly resembled a black rat, might be kind of fun to play with after all.

We certainly didn't need a 13th cat - but as Rodger likes to say, it undoubtedly was fate....this happened 5 days following my  surgery for basal cell skin cancer (www.skincancer.org/basal/) on my nose, and I was feeling pretty down and, admittedly, sorry for myself.  This little girl cheered me up and made me laugh with her kittenish antics, as well as forcing me to focus on her own wants and needs.  We initially named her Lucky Charm because that's what we felt she signified  --  but also because she turned out to be pretty lucky herself.  But, after days of  affectionately calling her "you little twerp!"  whenever she performed some kittenish antic, Twerp eventually became her name.