So it turns out that in some places with wise city fathers it will soon be illegal to own more than three cats at a time. This is:
a) Good. My cat allergy + my current hosts’ four cats (also a drooling, shedding dog) + the person who lives here who likes cats threatening to get more cats + the person who lives here who likes dogs threatening to get more dogs without building a fence in the yard so they can all stay outside = Jonathan dead by the New Year (or odd accidents befalling said cats by the New Year… mwahahaha).
b) Bad. Because, let’s face it, crazy cat ladies are one of those sad types of people that always seem like they’re fictional characters that have walked straight out of a children’s book or a weird-people documentary and now walk around in the real world. Using them in books is only going to be half as fun if they no longer can exist in real life and join the ranks of formerly plausible characters, like milkmen, chimneysweeps, or gouvernesses. And what are we going to replace the extra dozen cats with? Add a few parakeets and maybe a turtle? (By the way, I once knew a pair of turtles named Helmut and Katharina, and by the end of our acquaintance they were deposited in this pond at the University of Chicago’s old Botany building by their owner, which wasn’t me, although I may have driven the getaway car. It turns out the pond is a concrete basin with too high sides for turtles to climb back out once the frost hits. RIP Helmut and Katharina. Sorry, Mother Earth.)
c) Yes, I realize it’s sexist to assume that all the people in question (officially referred to as “animal hoarders” – in the worst recent case, 488 cats for one cat lady) are “cat ladies,” but it appears that two thirds of them are, and 70% are single. I wonder why that is… maybe it has to do with cat hair and litterbox kernels everywhere when the guests come over. Maybe. (Before you demur, studies show “that animal hoarders tended to be somewhat isolated” and “his seemed to be the result—and not the cause—of their large pet collections.”) Also, it’s a pathology having to do with a false belief they’re doing good.
