My Cat is My Best Friend

My Cat, Zora, has become my best friend in the entire world. We share conversations with each other, and sometimes I am even sure she is commenting on my choice of clothing via meow. She looks at me as if to say “Please do not do that. I don’t think you are making the right decision.” when I am contemplating something that does not meet her approval. She has the best snuggles of anyone I have ever met. Her fur, once unattractive, now has a glossy, beautiful sheen that makes me proud to call her mine. She approves and disapproves of my friends and my lovers. She is my leading authority on whether or not to invite them over again, and she lays on all of my books while I am reading them. She has taken the place of my former best friend who is now married and working through fertility doctors for my replacement. Isn’t it funny how that happens?

I never wanted a pet when I was 21. Who has enough time and responsibility for a pet? How would I ever take care of a pet? I work too much. I am on the road too much. I am too young. I don’t think I can have pets at this apartment. Why would I want a cat, they just shed hair and stink up the place? The house isn’t clean enough, and my roommates are too loud. I might just wait a few years to get a pet, when I have enough time and money to spend with one. Then I think, who wants to raise a pet in this world?

Then you grow up, get organized, and pick up your new best friend at the Humane Society when she is 3 and you are 24. You don’t fall in love right away, and you only picked her because something oddly curious appealed to you when she was sitting there staring up at you without saying a word. It is months before you realize that she is almost human even though she sleeps in the same bed as you. One day you wake up and some how you (or she) has made this world where only you two exist, and everyone else comes second. You start to take pictures of her lying in the sun and making funny moves.

Maybe one day she or I will let me get married, and I can go to the fertility clinic, too. Now she and I are too selfish. She hates to see me go to work. I don’t think she would allow children. She doesn’t even like other cats. She is finally making friends with some of my male friends. She likes the really nice, comfortable ones who have been around a long time and wear sweaters and she even snuggles them when I am not looking. Not that I am jealous or anything. She still doesn’t like children, but who has enough time and responsibility for that? I am busy. I work too much…