I was not looking to take one last shot at cats before the new gig starts, but that's what people will say.
People will say: "You never gave cats a chance. Now you're sticking it to them one more time before you go off to do whatever."
Which is not true. I'm simply telling a story here. It just happens to involve a cat. If it was about another animal, even a dog - which is always friendly - I'd write about that. Period.
In any event, the story begins on a recent weekend in Massachusetts, where my wife and I are spending the night at the home of our old friends Bob and Ellen.
We are making small talk in the kitchen when Ellen says: "Oh, we have a new addition to the family."
Ellen is 54 years old, so we can pretty much rule out that there's a bassinet with a sleeping baby somewhere in the house.
Now I start to get nervous. I start to get a vibe that this is her cutesy way of telling us about a new pet. And knowing Ellen, I'm pretty sure what kind of pet, too.
Sure enough, the new addition turns out to be a cat.
"His name is Cosmo," she says.
Cosmo. What a name. But what difference does it make? You can call a cat by his name all day long, and the cat won't come.
Just then, as if on cue, the cat saunters into the kitchen.
"Can you say hi, Cosmo?" Ellen says.
The cat glares at us. This is what passes for "Hey, how you doing?" in the cat world.
Anyway, for the rest of the day, the cat makes himself scarce, which is fine with me. I am a dog person and don't much care for the chilly nature of cats, anyway.
We end the night with a few cocktails on the deck and a lot of stories about the old days. Finally, it's time for bed.
Which is when Ellen drops this one on us: "You have to leave your bedroom door open for the cat. That's where he sleeps."
Excuse me?
"You'll be sorry if you don't," she says.
I'll be sorry? Who's the cat with, the Gambino family?
At this point, I start to think: There's a Holiday Inn Express right up the road.
I could sleep in a place where cats are not skulking around in the middle of the night and wake up to a nice continental breakfast in the lobby, with bagels and yogurt and those waffle irons where you pour the batter in and flip it and it makes a waffle the size of a satellite dish.
But my wife says: "No, we can't go to a hotel. It would hurt Ellen's and Bob's feelings."
