Cat Lady

On Sunday evening I was with three of my closest friends. It was the day after Valentine’s Day, in which they all spent with their significant others – one is married, one is engaged, and one just moved in with her boyfriend. As they compared gifts, dinners and wonderful nights they shared with their loved ones just 24 hours earlier, I held back telling them about the huge Valentine’s Day fight I had gotten in with the boy who they think isn’t worth my time. Yes, I’m still the single one. The oldest one of the four, and still single.

Single gals in their mid-twenties are concerned about one thing: their future. Their future pet, their future career, their future home, and yes: their future relationship status. There comes a point for single girls where we wonder if -- rather obsess over or in many cases assume -- we’ll never get married. Of course this thought probably crosses every girl’s mind a few times in life, before they find Mr. Right. But of course all of our best friends find him when they’re in or just out of college. And sure it’s so exciting to see the wedding of a best friend getting married, and it’s wonderful when the next person gets engaged. But when it comes to a point where every weekend someone’s getting engaged or hitched, and we still haven’t found a worthy date to take to engagement parties or weddings, we begin to panic.

The excitement for a friend getting engaged and married to her one-and-only will never go away. We never wish ill-will on those that tie the knot. We simply panic. More and more every day. We begin to name our future cats, because we know they’re the only ones that will be around when we grow old. And then we panic about when we’ll die at 90-years-old and no one will know because, since we never got married, we don’t have children to call and check up on us everyday. Oh, the cats will know that we died in our cat-lady-chair. But they won’t begin to care until they’ve realized they haven’t been fed for two days. Then they’ll start to nibble on our cold bodies. And it’s not until we don’t pay rent in our cat-lady-apartment (of course we’ll never be able to afford a house since we’ve only had one income our entire lives) that someone finally comes knocking on the door and realizes that maybe the crazy cat lady finally kicked the bucket.

I don’t even like cats. But I know I’ll have tons. And everytime I’m on the elevator at work there always seems to be a cat lady lurking, and she spots me. And talks to me. She probably senses my future. Maybe there is a club to join – after you get your 3rd cat they probably mail you an invitation. Activities on the weekend might include how-to classes on choosing which feline friend is best for you.

I’ve already got a few names picked out. They’re the names I’d love to name my real children, should I ever actually have any. I imagine the mouse-on-a-string toy that I’ll dangle over the cats to get them to play with me. I’ve even got the cat-lady-sweater hanging on the back of my chair at work. (Hooray for me, I’m one step ahead.)

Maybe one day I’ll have the real children and a hubby to call my own, but until then, my future children look furry and have four legs. They don’t talk much, but that’s alright because at least they won’t bother me while I’m watching my cat-lady shows at night.