If you've ever loved a cat, you know they sometimes love you back - oddly, occasionally, inconveniently - if not madly, truly, deeply. Every cat I've ever loved had its own peculiar preferences for spending time with me.
Take my cat, Silas, a large orange tabby. Si's idea of a cozy rendezvous is sitting with me in the bathroom. If I do manage to sneak into the loo without him, he paws the door hard until it sounds like someone's trying to pound it down - which someone kind of is. The pawing is relentless, and even a task as basic as the one he's interrupting becomes impossible.
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Sometimes, if I'm home alone, I leave the door ajar so I won't have to get up and let him in. Within seconds, his basketball head butts the door wide open, chonky middle following, and tail, pointing straight up like the mast on a frigate. He strolls in as if to say, "Everything is under control! Go about your business! Just pretend I'm not here!"
Once in, his approach and demeanor vary depending on his mood. There's the version where he plops down on the bath mat and settles in like the customer at an all-you-can-eat buffet who’s cleaned out the hush puppies pan - twice - and is prepared to wait for as long as it takes for a fresh batch to be fried - 20 minutes before closing time.
A variation on that theme is Silas, the annoying neighbor. Wearing an unbuttoned Hawaiian print shirt and plaid shorts, this neighbor flops down in your backyard chaise just as you were about to nap in it and brings only one beer - the one he's drinking.
Sometimes, thinking I'm alone, I'll wonder where Si is only to see him emerge without warning from the linen closet or under the sink - like an Addams Family member roaming through hidden tunnels or behind walls to appear when you least expect it.
When I'm running late, standing at the mirror, frantically slapping on makeup, Silas plucks my last nerve by doing figure-eights around and between my ankles. If Silas were human, he'd be that guy who wakes his wife up at 5 a.m. bugging her for you-know-what.
My favorite Silas move - the one that makes me smile, even as I glance at my watch - is the one where he settles atop my bare feet with his paws curled against his chest and purrs. One could argue that there's a whiff of practicality in this, that Silas is holding me hostage in my own bathroom just so he can warm himself with my body heat. But how do we know Silas isn't trying to warm me? Or maybe he's killing two birds with one stone by keeping us both warm. Diapering babies, cooking someone’s dinner, patching a kid's jeans, shoveling a neighbor’s sidewalk are often acts of love masquerading as practical tasks.
When Silas lays on my feet, his purr seems primeval like something that has rumbled since the dawn of time.
Why should I worry that he's slowing me down - especially when I’m going too fast to begin with? Why shouldn't I admire the ingenuity he tapped with this win-win solution for warming us both?
And why shouldn't a cat and its human meet up around the toilet just so they can be together for a while? Humans have done it around bonfires, funeral pyres, and office water-coolers for years.
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