Say Hello To My Little Friend

Today I went shopping at Target with my friend Katie and her three kids. While walking down an aisle with her daughter Elizabeth, I picked up a box of cat food.

Elizabeth: "Melanie, do you have cats?"

Me: "I do. I have six actually. Well, I don't really have six. They live outside. I just feed them." Notice I felt a need to defend having six cats to an eight year old. That's the shame I feel.

We walked along in silence until, "Did you make that up?" She asked in an accusing voice. "You don't really have six cats!"

It's nice that children think having six cats is something cool enough to make up. I'm pretty sure in adult land, pretending you have six cats makes you a special kind of crazy cat lady.

I told Katie about it and she started to laugh. We imagined what it would be like if I really was making it up and what I thought were cats were something else. Like that eyeglasses commercial where the lady invites a raccoon into her house, thinking its her cat.

Katie would come to my house and be like, "Uh... That's a squirrel. That one is a raccoon. And I don't even know what that is."

Me: "No, they are my cats."

Her: "That one is foaming from the mouth. And it's biting you."

Me: "They are love bites!"

Her: "Is that a fox?"

But alas, I really do have six cats. In my defense though, they are rarely all home at the same time so it's more like I run a B&B for cats. That's better, right?

Whatever. Just say hello to Fluffy. Yes, he always hisses and coils like that. What do you mean cats don't have scales? I'm pretty sure they do! I just wish I knew where my other cats were and what those lumps are in Fluffy...