Please indulge me as we take a brief detour from our normal grammatical discussion….
Take a moment to imagine a solitary writer. What do you see? A bespectacled figure hunched over a laptop? A desk cluttered with teetering stacks of paper, red pens, and coffee cups? Sagging bookshelves groaning under the weight of countless dictionaries and thesauruses? And there beside the wordsmith’s chair, do you envision a trusty animal companion, happily napping as the keyboard clamors?
In your mental picture of this lone scribe, is the animal companion a cat or a dog? Although I have absolutely no statistical proof, I believe that most people will envision a cat. For whatever reason, cats are more closely associated with literary culture. Yes, many famous writers, including William Faulkner, Kurt Vonnegut, and Virginia Woolf, were all dog lovers; but the mythology surrounding Ernest Hemingway’s six-toed cats and the images of Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe with kittens on their shoulders weigh more heavily on our cultural impression of writers.
This cat-centricity has always left me feeling a bit detached from my writing peers because I have spent almost my entire adult life with dogs. In fact, I’m not just a dog lover, I’m a dog person. Dogs—with their crazy antics, obnoxious smells, dirty paws, wet noses, and constant attention-seeking behavior—have been always been absolutely irresistible to me. So, when my husband and I lost our last dog (a Cairn terrier named Windy) to an age-related illness one year after moving to a high-rise in downtown Chicago, we had to face the heartbreaking reality that our city lifestyle wasn’t suitable for another dog—at least not while we live in a building that requires long elevator rides just to take a doggie bathroom break.
Initially we planned to live pet-free: no more hair everywhere; no more expensive trips to Petsmart; and no more worry about nail trims, vet bills, or pet sitters. But two weeks after Windy’s passing, there we were, standing in the Anti-Cruelty Society, looking at a room full of cats. Yes, cats. And these cats weren’t wagging their tails or vying for our attention with sad eyes or cute whimpers. No, these cats were not interested in us at all.
Still, we left the shelter with two brothers whom we named Mr. Heckle and Mr. Jeckle—because we knew they’d be trouble. And trouble they were. They decided to ignore our very existence for about four months despite the fact that we filled the apartment with cat toys, scratching posts, and a six-feet-tall cat tree right in the middle of the living room.
But during their fifth month here, they came to a mutual agreement that they would give us a chance. First they started rubbing against our legs. Then they started sitting near us on the couch. Occasionally they would sleep on the end of the bed. By the sixth month, they wanted to sit on our laps and were not timid about telling us when they wanted a treat or dinner.
Today, they offer as much affection as one can expect from members of the feline persuasion. And I have finally come to accept that this affection will be doled out in thrifty doses, not in the outsized portions so generously provided by a dog. Yes, Mr. Heckle and Mr. Jeckle have grown on me. Maybe someday I will even count myself among the cat people.
Yet, I am still baffled by one vexing question: how can anyone write when there is a cat constantly walking across the keyboard?
jfkdajfkdl;aj digjkal;ejoia; jfi4oaj4 iofjjkdla;ijfidajfi4oapjfdi eia;jgkd dkfiea;jfeioaoifngn,,///