This weekend, I had my first glimpse of what it might be like to be a cat lady. I went to a store called "The Yankee Cat" and deeply wish I hadn't, for fiscal as well as emotional reasons.
First, I had to buy a cat bowl. Cats, as it turns out, are prone to acne and will have a terrible adolescence if you let them drink or eat out of plastic bowls. So, I went to this store in search of a ceramic bowl. I'm already bored by my own description of this errand. Cat ladies, if you let them, will bore you.
My first upsetting sensory experience was not looking at the kitty-cat themed windchimes in the window, or the anticipation of having to hear them. Instead, in the way one knows you're in a victoria's secret, a pumpkin-cranberry-apple pie spice potpourri pottery barn, or a tire store (a smell I actually happen to like that also reminds me of being taken on errands as nothing more than an inconvenience and during a time when I had no responsibilites whatsoever) I knew I was in the domain of a cat lady. I'll happily leave the rest to your imagination, but I will tell you that cats the size of labrador retrievers had the run of the place. Their names, as far as I could tell, seemed to have a revolutionary war theme-- I decided that was their business, not mine.
Since I'd just taken in a stray and "surrendered" it, as they say, I thought I'd ask the cat lady what she knew of animal shelter practices. What I got in return was reassurance that all my assumptions were grossly incorrect, that, globally, most cats face a bleak future, and was asked if I cared to see all the cats she met in Italy. Would I? Of course!
Italian cats, while they do smoke like chimneys, drink like fish, and have an unhealthy obsession with olive oil, are much more beautiful than American cats. She even knew a cat who used her credit card to get a flight back to Florence. When she got home, Mrs. Revere was nowhere to be found.