Tell me how you got your cat. I found this gremlin in a McDonald’s dumpster on Thanksgiving

It was Thanksgiving evening, the kind where the air smells like fried food and cold wind, and everyone else seems to be somewhere warm. I had stopped by a McDonald’s to grab a last-minute coffee after a long day with family. The parking lot was nearly empty, the neon sign buzzing softly against the dark sky. I remember thinking how quiet it felt for a holiday.

Then I heard it.

At first, I thought it was the wind pushing trash around near the dumpster. But the sound came again—thin, sharp, insistent. A tiny, outraged squeak that did not belong to plastic bags or rattling lids. I walked closer, half-expecting to find nothing. Instead, peering between greasy paper sacks and a mountain of discarded fry cartons, I saw two enormous eyes glaring back at me.

He was small. Not “cute small.” More like “what on earth are you?” small. All ears and attitude. His fur stuck out in jagged angles, matted with who-knows-what. A smudge of something suspicious marked his nose. He looked less like a kitten and more like a disgruntled little goblin who had been banished from somewhere important.

When I reached down, he hissed. Not convincingly—but enthusiastically. A dramatic, raspy protest from a creature the size of a soda cup. He tried to puff himself up, which only made him wobble. That’s when I noticed how thin he was. The bravado was bigger than the body supporting it.

I didn’t plan to take home a cat that night. I didn’t even particularly consider myself a “cat person.” But I also couldn’t close that dumpster lid and walk away. So I did the only logical thing: I took off my scarf, scooped up the angry gremlin, and carried him to my car while he complained the entire way.

The drive home was a soundtrack of indignant squeaks. I kept glancing over, half expecting him to vanish like some holiday hallucination. But he stayed, curled into the fabric, shivering less with each passing mile.

At home, I gave him a shallow dish of water and some plain turkey left over from dinner. He attacked it like it might disappear at any second. No hesitation. No manners. Just survival. Afterward, he climbed—uninvited—onto my lap and fell asleep mid-purr, as if his tiny engine had finally run out of fuel.

That was the moment I knew he wasn’t temporary.

The next morning, in proper lighting, I realized he was even scruffier than I’d thought. His fur refused to lie flat in any direction. His whiskers bent at odd angles. One ear had a permanent tilt, like he was constantly questioning my life choices. The vet confirmed he was healthy, just underfed and dramatic.

I named him Nugget, partly because of where we met, partly because it felt fitting. Over time, the dumpster gremlin transformed. His fur grew soft and thick. His eyes lost their wary edge and settled into something calmer. But the attitude? That stayed. He still yells at closed doors. He still steals fries when I’m not looking. He still stares at me like I owe him rent.

Every Thanksgiving, I think about how close I came to missing that sound in the dark. How a quick stop for coffee turned into thirteen pounds of chaos who now rules my couch. People ask how I got my cat, expecting a tidy adoption story.

Instead, I tell them the truth.

I found him in a McDonald’s dumpster on Thanksgiving.

And somehow, in rescuing that tiny gremlin, he rescued something in me too.