(RR opens door, cat comes scurrying down the hall to greet her.)
RR: You're a cat!
Cat: Meow meow meow!
RR: What are you doing here? Where are your people?
Cat: Meow etc.
RR: Where do you come from? (RR begins walking down the hall; cat trots along eagerly, doglike) I don't know where you come from. Is this your door? (pointing at door) This one? Do you live here?
Cat: Meow, purr. (rubs against RR's legs)
RR (continuing down the hall; no doors are open; it is too late to be knocking on strangers doors): Is this your house? Where do you live?
Cat (appears to recognize nothing; purrs)
RR: Well, I don't know. (returns to apartment) No, you can't come in--you have to stay out here so they can find you! No, I'm sorry, you are a very nice cat, but your people will want you.
Cat (sadly rejected, goes away)
????
RR
Note 1: Yes, this conversation happened out loud, not in my head.
Note 2: I have lived in this building since 2004 and never before tonight been to the other end of the hallway.
Note 3: Having a nice little cat appear at my door and volunteer to live with me is a longstanding fantasy of mine, and it pretty much crushed me to turn it away.
7 comments:
This cat wasn't by any chance black, with yellow eyes, was it?
I ask because yesterday afternoon the neighbour popped by to see my new pup, and as I opened the door, said black cat darted through.
"Is that your cat?" said the neighbour.
"I don't own a cat," I said, and retrieved it from my bathroom. In fact, my wife is allergic to cats.
I turfed the cat out. It hung out on my porch until nearly midnight, and made three more forced entries.
And this morning, it was gone. So....
This is pretty much exactly how I got my cat, Molly, except I was at a payphone outside my apartment. Took her in, put up posters for a month. Nobody claimed her, so she's been with me for close to six years now.
Oh RR, how did you possibly resist!
There is a cat missing from Pearson Airport.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/801372--cat-missing-in-westjet-mix-up-at-pearson?bn=1
Maybe you found it?
i like 'meow etc.' this is how i am going to start answering the unanswerable questions of my undergraduates.
them: 'i do not understand, um, phonology? could you explain it again?'
me: 'meow.'
them: 'what?'
me: 'meow, etc.'
RR: You're a cat!
Cat: Meow, meow, meow.
Thank you for the best laugh I've had so far this week.
Don't worry for me, guys--that cat had disappeared by the time I went out the next day, and I'm pretty sure it went home to its owners (and was not, as a friend suggested, a "ghost cat." And then Wednesday evening, coincidentally, was the night that my friend dropped of her cat to stay with me while she's on vacation. So I am sufficiently catted--for now.
AJ, that's a very very weird coincidence. I wonder if all MR winners were assailed by cats on Tuesday. We should ask Amy!!
RR
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