overheard in providence

My girlfriend (a.k.a “Jessica”) regularly laments her lack of feline companionship. At this point, kitten acquisition by summer’s end appears inevitable. My primary concern is that a healthy subset of our friends claim to be allergic, and alas, the age of affordable hypoallergenic kitties has not yet arrived. More broadly, there seems to be some tension between cat ownership and social interaction.

Over the course of my NYC-based only-childhood, my family had a number of cats, although never more than two at once since as my wise father one told me, “Son, when you have three or more cats, you’ve crossed a threshold”. One of our later cats, Moe, was widely recognized as being freakishly friendly, but his feline status still managed to put several of my more dog-oriented friends on edge. The history of cat domestication, it seems, goes a long way toward explaining why the bulk of cats and dogs have such different personalities. Another consideration, however, for why cats don’t always jive with the masses is that non-cat owners don’t necessarily get much exposure to cats.

When I was in elementary school, I was always jealous that dogs, but not cats, got to accompany parents as they picked up their children after school. In New York City, a cat being taken for a walk is a rare sight indeed. So rare in fact, that a single housecat’s walks through central park were recently deemed intriguing enough to warrant an entire New York Times article (complete with multimedia supplement).

Perhaps feline PR would improve if more cat owners took their pets out for a stroll. It’s an unlikely prospect to be sure, but apparently taking your cat for a walk can be far less cumbersome than I suspected, since today, while on broadway between 107th and 108th street, I saw a man confidently walking down the street with his cat perched calmly on his baseball hat. Regrettably, I only got a chance to take his picture from behind (see below), because for some reason I felt awkward running right in front of him to snap a photo. Ridiculous right? He’s walking around with a cat on his head and I’m worried about being discreet.

Since I was already headed to the ATM, I decided I’d walk ahead of him, go inside, then take his picture from the side, but as I was crossing the street I ran into fellow Stuyvesant/Brown/Brown Grad School attendee, Emily Young. When I drew her attention to the man-cat combo, Emily (who lives in the area) didn’t mention having seen them before, so maybe this is a new phenomena. Still, I doubt it’s a one time thing. If you’re the type of guy who decides to go out for a stroll with your cat perched on your head, you’re probably the type of guy who’s game to try it twice.