Standing in the checkout line at the store last week, I had a moment of panic. As I was arranging my items on the counter for the clerk to scan, I realized:
This is all cat stuff. I totally look like a crazy cat lady right now.
I had a huge bag of dry cat food, a 12-pack of Meow Mix entrees in little plastic cups, flea medicine, and yes, it’s possible there was a new and interesting toy in my cart as well. It was true: My cats were the only reason I had gone shopping that morning.
“I guess today’s Cat Day,” I remarked self-consciously to the cashier.
“Honey, every day’s Cat Day,” the lady behind me in line piped up. I glanced into her cart. Ginormous bag of cat food. Equally huge bag of cat litter. Toy mouse with neon-colored feathers hanging off. Yep, a fellow cat person.
As the cashier rang up my items, the lady and I chatted about our “babies.” Between the two of us, we had seven cats. She had just acquired her fourth, an adorable six-week-old kitten someone had abandoned, leaving it in a cardboard box near her house. “I already have three, but I just couldn’t resist,” she finished.
Just couldn’t resist. Doesn’t that pretty much sum up us cat people? No cat person can resist those sweet little faces, those soft (or sometimes quite loud) purrs, the nuzzles and head bonks and the figure-eights around the ankles. We always have that emergency can of tuna stashed in the back of the pantry, and we’re ready to devise sweet, yet embarrassing feline nicknames at a moment’s notice. (I’ve found adding “Mc” or “pants” to most cat names yields fine results. Example: A cat named Muffin could go by “Mr. Muffinpants” or “The McMuffinator.”)
Well, I guess I am a crazy cat lady. And proud of it!
—Allison Ruffing
