A couple of weeks ago, my girlfriend and I were at dinner, and she was feeling pretty down. She thought that going to play with some cats would make her feel better, so once we finished eating, we headed to the shelter a few miles down the road. We checked out the cages near the receptionist desk, and a little calico long hair stuck her paw out like she never wanted us to leave.

We checked out the other rooms, but there was never that one cat we absolutely fell in love with. So we headed back to the front desk and asked if we could have interaction with the one that was pawing at us: "Ripley" is what they called her. We held her, we let her snoop around. Immediately, she jumped onto my girlfriend's lap and started purring away. It was then that we knew she was the one.

We run to PETCO, and that is when we knew that Athena, what we changed her name to, was absolutely the perfect name in the most ironic way possible. She jumped onto the shelf in the food aisle and we had to dig her out and put her back in the cardboard carrier we were given to take her home.

Since we have gotten her home, she has taken a liking to jumping in the toilet, not giving us any space in the bathroom, attacking my feet when I am trying to sleep, and walking across my keyboard when I try to use my computer. Every time my girlfriend walks in the door when she comes home from work, she comes charging out and giving these tiny meows that can be interpreted as "where have you been all day?" And she always has to get some bedtime snuggles.

Getting a cat this early in the game may not seem like the smartest idea in the world, but she has brought a lot to us in the short amount of time that we have had her. My girlfriend's depression had been getting the best of her, but in different ways, then it had before. The comfort and love of an animal proved to work before: her dog Jake had gotten her through the worst years when her life was a real mess.

As for me, it's nice to have a little company while I am stuck in the apartment with nowhere to go and nothing to do outside the monotony of being a houseboy. Sure, she doesn't go to me for attention all that often, but just knowing she is there has helped. I have been caught up with not having any way to meet new people and it has left me in a bit of a funk.

But the most important thing that she has helped us with is being more responsible. We now take into account the cost of food and vet visits, forcing us to be more financially responsible. If we want to take any sort of vacation, we think about what we are going to do with her so that she is taken care of before we think about where to go or what to do. And when we want to go out but know we can't, she has made staying in more enjoyable.

We may not have been completely prepared for what she brought to us. But if you were to ask us if we would take that furball home with us again, we would cut you off before you could finish the question with a resounding "yes."