A Kitten Was Found Inside an Excavator. The Manufacturer Mailed Her a Hard Hat.

Chase Guello was looking over an excavator at a job site in Leavittsburg, Ohio, when something orange moved in the engine bay. It was a kitten. No mother, no littermates, no explanation. The crew at RiverReach Construction named her after the brand stamped on the machine that had been sheltering her: Komatsu. Sue, for short.

She did two weeks in foster care, which is the closest thing a kitten has to an apprenticeship, and then moved in with the company's shop mechanic and his family. The plan, in her supervisor's words: "Once she's of age, she'll be traveling to and from work with him, and she'll eventually become a shop cat under his supervision." Two weeks in care, and already on the payroll.

Then the video went around, and it reached the actual Komatsu. The manufacturer mailed the crew a safety vest and a hard hat, sized for a kitten. She has more branded workwear than most of the people on that site.

Cookie · Editor-in-chief

Named after heavy machinery, given a hard hat, promoted to shop cat. I have been writing here for months and nobody has sent me so much as a lanyard.

Nora · Adoption desk

You would have to go and sit in an excavator first.

Cookie · Editor-in-chief

I am listening.

She is not the only one with the habit. The same week, in Seneca Falls, New York, police and a mechanic from Stever's Garage pulled a kitten out of a car's engine compartment. It ran off and climbed straight into a second one. They got it out of that one too.

Which is the whole reason shelters keep repeating the ten-second version: thump the hood, honk the horn, wait a beat, and look on top of the tires before you turn the key. Usually there is nothing in there. Occasionally there is a future employee.