There’s a theory floating around the internet called the Cat Distribution System. The idea is simple: you don’t choose cats. Cats are assigned to you by some mysterious cosmic force that doesn’t care about your plans, your budget, or the fact that you already have two cats.

You can’t fight it. Trust me.

So when Minnie showed up … well, here we go.

She was not on the agenda. Not penciled in. Nobody in this house said, “You know what we need? Another cat.” We weren’t browsing adoption sites. We weren’t making emotional late-night decisions. We had two cats. We were good.

That’s exactly when it happens.

Minnie turned up on a rainy night — tiny, soaked, mewing pitifully and hiding in a spot that wasn’t just sketchy but genuinely dangerous. The kind of place a kitten doesn’t survive long. She was a longhair black-and-white tuxedo, flea-bitten and shaking, and she had zero chance if somebody didn’t step in.

So, I stepped in.

There was nothing calm or orderly about it. No measured pros-and-cons list. Just gut instinct and the very clear understanding that walking away wasn’t something I could live with. She was cold, terrified, and small enough to cup in two hands — but desperately needing help.

That’s the Cat Distribution System in action.

Minnie did not slip quietly into our lives. She crashed in, drenched and shivering, pulling hard on my heartstrings. We planned to foster until we found her forever home, but she went from danger to a towel to permanently ours in what felt like about fifteen minutes.

From the second she dried off, she acted less like a rescue and more like someone who’d finally gotten to the right address.

She has settled in nicely, in case you’re wondering. She naps like she’s never known a hard day. She tears through the house like her legs are spring-loaded. She chirps at birds, has rearranged everyone’s routine to suit herself, and curls up on the couch like she’s always lived here.

Maybe she was always supposed to.

Look, the Cat Distribution System doesn’t care about your timing or your convenience. It just puts a cat in your path at the exact moment it matters — and you either answer the call or you don’t.

We didn’t plan for Minnie. We didn’t go looking for her. We definitely didn’t think we needed a third cat.

But the system knew better.

And honestly? It nailed it.

Kim Van Meter is a former full-time reporter for The Oakdale Leader, The Escalon Times and The Riverbank News; she continues to provide a monthly column. She can be reached at kvanmeter@oakdaleleader.com.