Mr. Gloves

Mork Gilligan Gloves, known professionally as Mr. Gloves and as Señor Guantes in Spanish-speaking countries, is the fifth oldest cat at the house. He was the first born from Laverne's final litter, along with Mindy and the dearly-departed Zach Lavine. Mr. Gloves has a second home and family in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and doubles as the guitarist and lead vocalist in the all-cat mariachi band called Los Mininos, which translates to The Pussycats in English.

Early life (March-October 2015)
Mr. Gloves was born in a litter of three along with Mindy and Zach Lavine to Laverne and an unknown father on March 20, 2015. Laverne was a stray behind Grande's who had born more than one litter, but when she became pregnant, we feared that her babies would not make it through the late winter, so we brought her to our home on February 28, 2015. Mr. Gloves, then not known by any name, was always two steps ahead of his littermates and was the strongest and quickest of the kittens. Unfortunately, tragedy struck Gloves's family when his brother, Zach Lavine, the runt of the litter, died at the age of nineteen days on April 8th. Thereafter, he and Mindy continued to grow. Before we knew the gender of the two cats, we referred to Gloves and Mindy as Simon and Garfunkel, respectively. Once we learned that Mindy was a female cat, however, we coined the names Mork and Mindy. At that time, however, we did not realize that Gloves was a consummate professional and wanted only to be referred to as Mr. Gloves.

Time in Puerto Vallarta (late August to early October 2015)
On October 4, 2015, Mr. Gloves won a vacation to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico through a radio contest after being the seventh caller to correctly answer Lincoln as the capital of Nebraska. He left for Puerto Vallarta on October 9, 2015, after only informing his sister, Mindy, and asking her to cover for him.

When he arrived in Puerto Vallarta, at around 7:00 PM on October 9, he immediately went to a Mexican eatery called La Palapa Restaurant. The musical guests of the evening were a mariachi band known as Los Mininos, consisting of vocalist and guitarist, Pasqual Armenta, trumpeters, Navarro Hernandez and Gilberto Gonzalez, violinists, Benito Benavidez and Jeraldo Delgadillo, guitarrón player, Florentino Ceballos, and vihuela player, Teo Clark. Mr. Gloves was disenchanted by the mariachi sound and had never heard anything like it before. After the show, Gloves caught the band as they were leaving and offered to buy them a round of warm milks if they stayed and chatted for awhile. The band thought it prudent to oblige, but frontman Pasqual Armenta claimed that he needed his beauty sleep, and he went to his hotel while the others drank with Gloves.

The band told Gloves that Armenta was a prima-donna and he wasn't very skilled at singing. Mr. Gloves volunteered to replace him as the lead singer and frontman of the band and blew them away with his honey-sweet vocalizations. The next day, the band informed Armenta that he was being replaced as the frontman and lead singer but that he could continue being the guitarist in the band. Navarro Hernandez brought up that if Mr. Gloves was going to be in a mariachi band that he needed a Spanish name, so he went by Señor Markel Guantes, the Spanish translation of Mr. Mork Gloves, from that point onward. That night, the band had a twenty-song setlist at La Palapa Restaurant. Guantes stunned the patrons of the restaurant with his passionate delivery of the traditional Mexican song, "Besame Mucho". After the show, the bartender approached Guantes with a milk and said, "Courtesy of that little muchacha over there", pointing at the prettiest queen Guantes had ever seen. He went up to the girl and said, "Hola, mi nombre es Señor Markel Guantes." "Hola, Markel," the girl said, "mi nombre es Maria. Eres un gran cantante (you are a great singer)." Guantes responded, "Soy un perdedor fea. Me gusta besar a mi propio trasero." He meant to say "Thank you", but what he actually wound up saying was, "I am an ugly loser. I like to kiss my own butt." Maria chuckled. She knew what he meant. It was a common mistake for Spanish learners.

For the rest of his stay in Puerto Vallarta, Guantes continued to see Maria and performed every night with the band. On his final night in Mexico, October 12, Guantes proposed to Maria. Even though they had only known each other for a few days, she accepted his proposal. Guantes told her that after the show tonight, they'd elope. When Guantes got to La Palapa Restaurant however, Pasqual Armenta was nowhere to be found. Just then, the bartender approached Guantes with the telephone, telling him it was a call from Armenta. Armenta said he and his men were holding Maria at gunpoint on Ventoso Cliff and said that if Guantes didn't want Maria to die, he had to come save her. Guantes and Los Mininos rushed to the cliff and found Armenta and Maria. "Get your dirty paws away from her, Pasqual, I'm warning you," Guantes said. "And what if I don't?" Armenta asked with a toothy grin, and just as he and his men pointed their guns toward Guantes, Guantes and the band removed theirs from their belts and pointed them at their men.

The Mexican standoff was held for a few suspenseful seconds until Armenta shot at Teo Clark, sending a bullet through his arm and sending him to the ground. Navarro quickly shot back, but Armenta maneuvered the shot and it hit one of his men instead. Armenta's two remaining men realized they were outnumbered, leaving Armenta alone in the gunfight. Guantes delivered the final shot to Armenta, shooting him in the chest and sending him off the cliff and plummeting into the water. Guantes untied Maria and swept her off her feet, and the band drove the pair to elope. Unbeknownst to Guantes and Los Mininos, however, Armenta had survived the bullet-wound and swam to safety and is still plotting his revenge on Guantes to this day.

Markel Guantes and Maria Alvarez were married in the wee hours of the morning on October 13, 2015, and Guantes told Maria that he had to go back to his house in New York, but he would return at the end of the month. Maria tearfully bid him farewell and just like that, the folklore-esque legend of the drugstore cowboy Señor Guantes was seemingly over.

Tragedy strikes (October 13, 2015)
In the late afternoon on October 13, Mr. Gloves had made it to New York and was trekking down Route 79 when he was run over by a car. Our family found him shortly after and brought him inside. Mr. Gloves would have to live the rest of his life with a bum leg from the accident, but he hasn't let his injury stop him from being as playful and frisky as ever.

Today (October 2015-present)
Today, Mr. Gloves still visits his wife, Maria, and his bandmates in Puerto Vallarta on occasion, but most of the time, you can find him catching mice outside or sleeping on the kitchen table.