We Do Not Need Another Cat

We are down a cat. It’s still too upsetting to talk about (rural life, tentative open window policy, probable coyote, lifetime of horrible, horrible guilt for not sticking to indoor cat guns), but we used to have two cats, the correct number of cats, and now we have one cat. An indoor cat.

And we can’t really face the idea of acquiring a second cat, because a) we’re having a human baby in a few months, and b) First Cat never really liked having a second cat, and now that she’s Only Cat, she’s super-stoked about it and prances around like she owns the place, and c) that would involve formally admitting that Second Cat is gone for good.

But, you know, I read the shelter intake emails every morning, even though Second Cat has been almost certainly deceased for a month now, and so I literally page through dozens of pictures of homeless cats on a daily basis, and it makes me feel like a ghoul. Even though, bless ’em, homeless cats usually put on great bitchface for the camera, you know? The dogs have that plaintive “where’s my mommy?” thing going, and the cats are all “get that out of my face. I don’t need you! I don’t need anyone!”

And you start thinking, maybe an elderly boy cat? Just some big orangey lump? But then First Cat is all, “I tolerated Second Cat because she was from the same Brooklyn feral cluster as me. We were basically sisters. Don’t push your luck. Did you see what I did to the stuffed bobcat you bought for your nieces?”

I don’t know.