I’m puzzled and a bit offended, I think. Scanning through my social media updates this morning, I came across a list of items that Amazon is sure I need, one of which is a Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure. She is dressed in purple pajamas with a pink terry-cloth robe and fuzzy slippers. Her hair is disheveled, pulled back with a purple headband—well, at least it matches—while one cat pokes his head out of her robe pocket and another is wrapped around her neck. The set includes a fun cat tower, with six more plastic cats of all colors positioned on various levels. And I recognize them all. There’s Toulouse, Tiger, Bandit, Smoke, Socks, and Pip.
Oh no. I can name them all. So that’s how Amazon is on to me. Maybe I’ve ordered a few too many cat habitats and Fancy Feast pallets. It all makes sense, but I’m certainly not going to order any stupid crazy cat lady figure, because I’m definitely not crazy. The very idea.
But I’m still offended. Why is it that people who choose to care for (OK, to collect) cats are called crazy? Why not people who collect dogs? We have a friend who lives on a farm in Columbia, Tennessee, who slows down for any dog on the road. If it jumps in the back of her pickup truck, she’s good with it. It has a home and a place in her Christmas card family lineup. But people call her cool, not crazy. No, she’s the Cool Dog Lady. The rough and tough farm owner with the pack of really cool dogs.
For once, I’d sure like to be Cool, not Crazy. My brother audibly smiles on our phone conversations if the subject of cats comes up. “You know, when Aunt Bea died, they found 19 cats in her basement. You don’t want to be like Aunt Bea,” he cautions. I assure him that my 19 cats are not in the basement, but on the farm for the most part, so I’m a bit tougher than Aunt Bea. My cats have a job to do. One that requires two Fancy Feast meals per day, which is not too high a price to pay for the return I get. But I’m not soft. We even have four rough and tough dogs in the backyard which pulls in a lot of cool factor. One is even a hunting dog. No crazy there.
I’ve never actually sought out a cat, although there’s nothing wrong with looking for one if you don’t already have 19. Boomer just showed up on our front porch, making himself at home over time. He’d wait out under the oak tree by the road until someone came home to feed him. I finally caved and ordered a heated cat house for him from Amazon. Once an animal has a name and a heated house on the front porch with his own food bowl, he’s a keeper. He stayed on the front porch for 10 years.
Ben, Buttons, Biscuit, Bolt, and Bandit have at various times occupied space and heated houses at the farm. We went through a phase of soul singer names, with Gladys Knight, Percy Sledge, Clarence Carter, and Marvin Gaye hanging out amid the hay bales. Marvin turned out to be incredibly tough to tame and even more of a challenge to get to the vet for parts removal, but it happened and he’s so much more mellow. He just sleeps and waits around for the next meal. Gladys Knight has her one Pip, and we don’t need another. So, it’s Gladys Knight and the Pip in the barn, which works well and is more than enough.
Our outliers include Sweet Pea, Puff, Toulouse, and even Sonic, who was rescued by our soft-hearted daughter from the middle of a four-lane highway in Starkville as she pulled out from the local Sonic. She’s such a softie. Bubblegum came from an equally soft-hearted veterinarian who had been asked to euthanize her because her hips were broken. Certain that they would heal, as she grew, he sent her home with the other soft-hearted daughter, so she now rules every big tough male cat on the back porch with her quirky stiff-legged rear suspension. One-eyed Puff has the same job at the barn, swinging her head around in full arc to glare at any offender with her single eye. It’s not exactly the Island of Misfit Toys, but close.
What’s becoming clear to me is that in this family, I’m actually the only one without a soft heart, which must be why I didn’t mind at all taking Bandit to the vet yesterday and returning with an empty carrier. Nope, that didn’t bother me one bit…
I just don’t understand why the guy with the million-dollar bass boat with the built-in depth finder and fish locator, along with a luggage compartment of Bass Pro Shop bait and lures is not called the Crazy Fish Guy. Or for that matter, why Crazy Cat Ladies are always female. Is it not possible to be a Crazy Cat Man? Even if that does sound like a sleazy, deranged, superhero. Put that one in an action figure box and it’d probably sell just as well as the pajama-clad wild-haired cat woman.
Apparently, Amazon knows me well, though. Smoke now requires Urinary Health food (canned, of course), while Toulouse is too small to stay out at night so he has his own screened habitat. Sadly, they even keep a history of purchases just in case you want to buy again.
And with cats in the double-digits, I’ll probably do just that, given enough time. But that’s not crazy. That’s cool, right? I’m the Cool Cat Lady. The Farm Cat Lady–the one without 19 cats in the basement.
And besides, I don’t even own a pink terry-cloth robe.
