Just Pretend I'm Not Here

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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Bricks and Mortar

I almost never go inside a store anymore - not a physical store anyway. I am one of those people helping to toll the death knell for big box stores and shopping malls. Some people still love to shop in a store. To them I say more power to you, but my first choice is shopping online. 

Graphic by Teece Aronin

Even though I'm a baby boomer, I just cannot imagine walking all over hell's half-acre trying to find one oddly-sized light bulb, just as I can no longer imagine having to answer the phone if I want to know who's calling.

A couple of weeks ago my son, Jon and I had time to kill before an appointment so I said, "Let's run into Target and get toothpaste. Besides, I really have to use the bathroom."

Inside, Jon strolled around while I dashed into the ladies room. There was a female store manager in there looking flustered. 

"I'm afraid you can't use the bathroom right now," she said. "There's been a water main break and the township is shutting off all the water."

"Now or in a few minutes?" I asked. "Because I really do have to use the bathroom."

A woman stepped out from a stall next to us, and the manager leaned to the side and peered in.

"Well, from the looks of things, you can't flush now," she said.

For no amount of money would I have traded places with that woman in the stall with her toilet bowl contents open for inspection.

"Oh, that's not necessarily true," said the woman in the stall. "I was just waiting for instructions before I flush. Should I try it, do you think?"

"Yes, go ahead, " instructed the manager. Both women were talking as if they worked for NASA, and the toilet was a rocket ship in trouble. The woman disappeared back into the stall and we heard a mournful, yowling growl from the toilet, as if a dragon was in there giving birth.

"That's just what I thought," said the manager. "You can't flush."

See now, that's a perfect example. If I was shopping online, I'd just put the laptop down and scamper off to the bathroom, then flush once the water was back on. I would not have to show my toilet contents to anyone else even if they did work for NASA. That's partly because, unlike some people, I know that a toilet is just a toilet and not a rocket ship, no matter how high someone is when they use it. When I shop online, the biggest irritant is the occasional error message because of outdated credit card numbers or passwords - unless I have to call customer service.

"Yes ma'am, it is certainly upsetting when you click to make a purchase and the item fails to appear in your cart. I know I would find that most frustrating." This was no doubt read to me from a script with a blank space for inserting my problem. 

"Well, can you fix the issue?" I ask.

"Ma'am, that depends. Did you click on the word buy or on the picture of the item you wanted to buy?"

"I clicked on the word buy."

"Ma'am, you were supposed to click on the picture."

"That doesn't make any sense. Who clicks on the picture? Besides, the word buy is bold and in italics."

"That's just an idiosyncrasy of the system, ma'am."

"An idiosyncrasy?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Wouldn't bolding the word buy and putting it in italics be a choice made by a human? How can you say it's an idiosyncrasy in the system?"

"Well, ma'am, because it really just is," said customer service. 

And those last italics were a choice made by this human.