My advice to anyone looking to get a cat is this: Don’t do it!
A
cat will take over your house and your life.
To start with, your favorite seat will become their seat. You will get up to get something from the fridge only to find your seat taken and have them look up you like they have done nothing wrong. "Were you sitting here?" they seem to say and you will find yourself re-locating to a new seat.
You will never eat another meal in peace as you will be constantly hounded to share your food with them. They will hear from across the house you opening a can of "anything" to come see what they might scavenge from you. They will assume that any food prep in the kitchen must be for them and not for you. They will bop their heads into your calves with much enthusiasm and affection as they can muster to increase their odds of having some morsel of food dropped from your hand to their waiting mouths. They will sit next to you on the couch and look up with big watery sad eyes. If you try to look away they will tap you on the arm or shoulder as if to say, "Hey! I am here! Please give me some!"
Throughout the day, you will be beaconed to the door to let them out only to be called upon a few moments later to let them back in. Ignoring them is fruitless. They will scratch at windows or bang nearby blinds over and over again as if to say, "I can do this all day! I have nothing I would rather do than drive you insane!"
Their hair will be found everywhere. It will collect on your floors , your beds , your shirts and your chairs. It will fill up your vacuum cleaner almost as fast as your can replace the bag. Invest in lots of lint-rollers and have them spread throughout the house as you will need them. You will be embarrassed when friends ask you, "Is that sweater cashmere?" only to say, "No. I have a cat!"
They will interrupt your sleep with cat-calls to rouse your from your bed to find that they had brought a “pipe cleaner animal” to your door as an offering of value as if to say “Look what I brought you!” They will jump on your bed in the middle of the night like a 3 year old child when the rare occurrence of lightning strikes in the night. You may try to console them but that was not the purpose of them waking you. The reason they woke you was to put YOU on alert for the next strike and they will be upset that you are not as scared as they are!
Speaking of displeasure, they will show their feeling to in a variety of ways: from hissing to scratching to even pooping. Yes, that's right! Pooping. Leave them alone for an extended weekend with plenty of food and water and you may have to endure a random "gift" left on your bathroom floor as if to say, "This is what you get for leaving me all alone!"
Your workspace will become their favorite sleeping spot. Whether it’s your desk or kitchen table, they will make going to work so hard to do. They will entice you too look away from your spreadsheets and emails to provide them with neck rubs and chin scratches. For some reason they will determine your upper corner of your laptop screen is the perfect place to rub their chin on. Who cares if it moves your screen up and down, you're not really working anyway... right? Sometimes they will mistake your computer cursor for a fly and try desperately to kill it and you may have to explain later to your boss how the value in field D26 got put into F34.
Couches and chairs will become places for them to sharpen their claws no matter how many more “approved sharpening tools” you buy them. But why would they? A piece of leather works so much better than polyester carpeting wrapped around a piece of wood. They do have their standards to keep up you know!
Speaking of standards, they will test your patience with your choices of food you buy them. Each brand or variety will be consumed with differing amounts of disdain or appreciation. You will find yourself oddly joyful when they consume your purchase with vigor and delight. But don't get too joyful for just when you think you have their food selection figured out they will test you yet again as they stand over their food and look up at with a look of "What? This again?"
As they grow older their health will deteriorate and you will spend 100's if not 1000's of dollars on them and endure scratches and clawing as you try desperately to give them their medicine. In the end you will agonize what to do about their last days with you. You’ll spend hours caressing them and cheering them on in hope their health will return. You will do this, all the while knowing it’s not likely to change the outcome. You will forget all of the above and wish for just one more day with them.
So my advice to you is if you don’t want to feel a hole in your heart when they go and like a piece of you is gone with them then I advise you to not get a cat. It will be the worst decision you will ever make.
