The next time I go shopping for a new cat, this will be the conversation I will have with the cat store clerk.
“Yes, I would like to buy a cat,” I will announce, on entering the cat retail outlet.
“What sort of cat would you like?” I will be asked. “We have all kinds.”
I will fish for a list I have been compiling and have stuffed in a pocket somewhere. I will hand it to the woman behind the counter. She will read my list back to me.
“You want a 15-pound housecat that doesn’t eat like it’s a 200-pound cougar,” she will say. “We have cats with normal appetites.”
“You also want a cat that doesn’t purr so loudly to hide the noise of the chainsaw it is slicing up your furniture with,” she says. “Our cats are trained to scratch nothing but scratching posts.”
“You want a cat that doesn’t fill its litter box as though it had somehow invited a half dozen of its closest friends over for an overnight party. Our cats are guaranteed to eliminate the required amount only. And to this related item, they never poop behind the TV.”
“You are hoping to buy a cat that doesn’t swallow three feet of wrapping paper ribbon, causing a vet bill of $300 to open it up like a Christmas present and remove two feet of blue ribbon and one foot of green. Our cats don’t eat ribbon or anything else that might obstruct their innards.”
“You want a cat that is not a food flinger. What is a food flinger, sir?”
I will tell her the tale of a cat that somehow tosses big chunks of its soft canned food all over the rec room when it chows down, those chunks landing on the carpet and even on its owner’s bare face and arms.
“We do not sell food flingers,” the now unsmiling sales clerk will reply. Anticipating my next question, she says her cats never throw up.
The rest of my list will specify that I do not want a cat that climbs through open windows and gets locked for days in a neighbour’s basement. And their garage. Also not on the roof of the neighbour’s house, causing the cat owner to get out his long ladder to go up and retrieve the little dickens which tries to open up some veins in the human’s arm on its descent from roof to ground. Also one that doesn’t crawl up into a neighbour’s car engine and cause his fan belt to fly off when he starts the car.
I am assured by the cat store clerk that none of their offerings will do any of these things. They will also not bring in the remains of mice they have killed and drop them on the kitchen floor.
“Basically,” I will say. “I want a cat that will sit in a corner of the room like a ceramic figurine and smile all day long.
“And I want one that goes by the name of Fred.”
By now the clerk appears to be holding back a lot of pent up rage, and I have no idea why.
“We have no Freds for sale,” she will bark at me (she used to work in a dog store.)
“Well, nevermind then,” I will cheerily say.
“Thanks anyway.”
©2022 Jim Hagarty
