willhines.net

Yes, another cat story, but you’ll agree it’s worthy of an entry. I would elaborate on how I’m not going to let my life get taken over by cats except that it obviously already has. The world is transforming me into a crazy cat person. It’s only a matter of time before I become my vision of the Classic Cat Eccentric: 70 cats running around my living room, me wearing glasses with extra-large frames, and my current set of friends and interests replaced with an obsessively maintained stamp collection.

Anyway, I helped rescue a lost cat today, and I hope to God its owner comes looking for it.

Today was supposed to be a busy but leisurely day for me. I was going to revise my script for my five-minute pilot for Channel 102., go to an audition (rarity for low-energy non-expressive me), meet with Rob and Jeff about storyboarding that Channel 102, perform an improv show, and then in a skech showcase. I was also going to exchange my two small cat carriers for one big one, hoping that would make Hopey’s vet appointment on Monday less traumatizing. Busy it was. But it was not leisurely since I did all those things but also spent four hours trucking a lost cat around Williamsburg.

I was walking with my two cat carriers to the local pet store where I bought them. I was going to exchange it, and then go to the audition (also in my neighborhood) on the way home. But two blocks out of my front door, I heard a woman say to me:

“Excuse me, are there cats in those carriers?”

I thought she was going to berate me since I was carrying them straight up and down and I asssured her “No, they’re empty.”

And she said “There’s a lost cat here, and I think someone should take it to the adoption center.” She meant the pet store where I was already going, which also sometimes takes strays.

I really did not want to stop. I was cutting it close to make it to the store and then the audition, and I didn’t want to get mixed up with a stray cat. There’s TONS of stray cats in my neighborhood and you have to steel yourself and realize you can’t help them all. But how could I argue? I HAD two empty cat carriers IN MY HANDS. I was GOING to the pet center ANYWAY. I guess I’m not incredibly spiritual, but when Fate delivers a coincidence this precise right in my lap — I’m too superstitious to defy. So I begrudgingly agreed to take the cat.

The poor thing was quietly meowing and rubbing our legs. She was a huge friendly dark tortoise shelled colored girl — definitely a house cat and not a true stray. She had snuggled into a tiny, disgusting alley on North 10th street near Driggs Ave. filled with cigarette wrappers and deli coffee cups. When I set the carrier down and opened it, she crawled right in. Looking at the gouges on my hands that MY kittens had given me because of this carrier — I briefly considered keeping this cat and bringing my kittens to the alley. They’d probably love it — no people and plenty of paper scraps to scutter around the ground for all hours of the night.

14 blocks later, the adoption center said that the cat looked so clean that it had probably just escaped and I should bring it BACK to the alley since its owner would probably come looking for it. They also wouldn’t let me exchange the carriers. I went to the audition with the cat, thinking maybe the absurdity of showing up with a stray cat would charm the sure-to-be-arty casting people. It didn’t. I headed back to the alley, and called the woman, Shelly, who had found the cat to meet me, which she did.

We knocked on nearby doors — no one was missing a cat. Shelly asked a lot of the ipod-sporting, scruffy-haired ectomorphs that populate my neighborhood and who were walking by if they “knew someone who lost a cat.” Lots of bewildered head-shaking but no takers.

Shelly has lived here for 16 years, so she knew a bunch fo people and it quickly became a neighborhood mission, with an almost annoying hipster flair. A homosexual couple who ran a nearby art gallery printed out signs for us to tape up, which we did. The gaunt Australian clerks at the used vinyl record/CD store offered to house the cat “for one week max” and printed out MORE signs for us. Joan at the local pet store volunteered free litter and food for the record store guys. All we needed were the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to test for fleas, and we’d have our movie.

The record store guys were all cat lovers, and they were so impressed with my perseverance (I didn’t feel too generous — I was acting only out of fear of defying fate) that they told me to take a CD for free (David Bowie’s Hunky Dory, thank you very much.)

This all took about four hours. By then it was 7:15 and I was exhausted since I hadn’t eaten yet that day (ah, the diet of the unemployed). I went home and found that my car’s battery had died, took a fifteen minute nap and then left for my meetings and shows.

Shelly said at some point that she thought the cat might have been pregnant. I didn’t notice and hoped she was just being a doomsayer. But what if she is? Maybe someone abandoned their cat when it got pregnant? Or what if the owners don’t speak English, and therefore can’t read the signs we posted? In either case, no owner will come looking, and I’m going to have to find a home for this girl, which I promised the clerks I would do if no one called.

Anyone want a cat?