Smorgasbord: I See Cat People

I am sitting at work at one of those random desks they assign to temps and consultants. As such, I am in a weird location of the floor plan with other ancillary staff. This means that socializing requires that everyone pile into this little office on their way to the rest room or the kitchen. The good news is that everyone, contract and permanent, is cool. The bad news is that, at the height of the socializing, I am surrounded by “cat people.”

For those of you familiar with 80’s B-movies who are beginning to feel jealous, I must caution you that I am not speaking of the hot naked Nastassia Kinski kind of Cat People. Sorry. I am speaking of those people who not only love their cats, but LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE their cats. You know the people I mean. You work with them too. You are probably related to at least one of them. None of them look like Nastassia Kinski.

So I am sitting here, feeling like CJ Craig on the most recent episode of West Wing, where she has 1300 pages in a binder to review before a meeting in 15 minutes. I am walking the wire to get some information into my brain before a client call in 30 minutes so that I can avoid completely embarrassing myself by suffering career-ending public “intellectual flatulence,” by which I mean a brain fart

Anyway, today—as on all other days I am in the office—this tiny office is crowded by people (I kid you not) sharing stories of what their cats did last night. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. They are seriously standing around, drinking that nasty bum-tasting coffee that all offices seem to have with names like Gold Label or TasteeCup, TALKING ABOUT THEIR CATS!! “Frisker just jumped up on the couch and looked at me like, ‘whatchoolookin at?!’ I laughed so hard!” “Mrs. Katz had some catnip and just went wild during the opening credits of Touched By an Angel.” “Alice is just so picky about her food; she’s just like me.” I am typing this in really small font so that no one can read over my shoulder. I can’t believe I am here, at this moment, inside a Saturday Night Live skit. Or perhaps more accurately, inside the movie Office Space.

Short Story Long: Maybe I’m being uncharitable because I am an avowed Dog Person. I find stories about people’s dogs to be interesting and heart warming. I think dogs are indeed man’s best friend. I think that dogs would take a bullet for their “owners.” I think that cats, if given the choice between food and their “owner,” would fire the gun themselves.