The Long and Complicated Saga of How I Became A Cat Lady

The whole thing started because my husband likes to pee outside.

We’re not weirdos. We live on several acres of woods and don’t have neighbors. Yes, it's peaceful. Yes, we’re very lucky. Yes, we have bears. (No, we’re not moving somewhere closer to civilization, Dad!) There’s a deck off of his office, and (if the mood strikes in the evening), my husband enjoys standing out there, taking in the sweet sounds of the evening forest...and peeing on it.

Don’t pretend like you wouldn’t do the exact same thing if given the opportunity.

It was during one of these evening respites that he first heard the soft but distinct mewing of a cat. He looked around a bit and called for it, but he saw nothing. This became a nightly routine for several weeks; pee, meow! Here, kitty-kitty!, silence. The cat finally emerged from the shadows the day after Christmas in 2018, and my gleeful husband called to me. “Hey honey! The cat’s here! The cat’s here!”

Let me interject for a moment to publicly state that I have never been a fan of cats; not the animal, not the construction equipment, not the Broadway musical (especially not the Broadway musical). I had an allergic reaction to a barn cat on my grandmother’s farm when I was 10, and my parents had to take me to the emergency room. So for the past 30 years I hadn’t even been able to be in the same room with one of those little bastards without my eyes and throat swelling shut.

However, there at my back door stood a smoosh-faced little beefcake with sweet eyes and no tail.

He looked up at me and mewed.

“Hey buddy. What happened to your tail?” I asked as though I expected an answer.

He shrugged. My little knowledge of cat culture suggests that cats can’t actually shrug because they don’t have shoulders per se, but I swear this cat shrugged.

"Meooow," he said.

“I mean, we can’t bring him inside,” said my sensible spouse.

Yes we can, said my dumb brain.

"Hey, you should let me in and pet my head and then feed me tuna...I mean, Meow!" said the cat.

I opened the door ever so slightly, and he walked right in like he owned the place.

And then something otherworldly and miraculous occurred. My eyes didn’t swell up. I didn’t itch anywhere. I cautiously patted his fuzzy head. One sneeze...but no hives. No wheezing. No imminent death. I really tempted fate and picked him up. He purred. He looked just like the cat from Pet Sematary (the original; not the one with John Lithgow and the aunt from Stranger Things). But, like, before it comes back wrong.

“His name is Church,” I announced. “He would like some Christmas dinner.”

And just like that, we were cat people.

Church hung around for a long time. He was our cat, but he never really owned us. Church was a gentle soul who didn’t particularly enjoy being carried around and cuddled but tolerated it like a champ. He was a free spirit, full of wanderlust, and although he was happy to hang out under my husband’s desk for a night or stop by to binge Parks and Rec with me once and a while, he couldn’t stay away from the wide open woods. Which really pissed off my daughter. She desperately wanted Church to hang around forever and sleep at the foot of her bed and ride in her doll’s stroller and belong to her.

Which is how we ended up with Phyllis.

I didn’t necessarily want a full-time house cat (except that I totally DID want a full-time house cat), but I thought that my daughter deserved to have her very own pet.

Yard sale season 2019 led the kid and me to a barn sale down the road (Author's Note: for those who don't live in the Northeastern part of the US, Yard Sale Season is just after the spring snow melts through the middle of autumn, and then it turns into Deer Season). As we wandered through other people’s junk, we found six tiny kittens playing gleefully around peoples’ feet.

“The kittens are free with any purchase!” called the exhausted- looking hobby farmer as she attempted to simultaneously wrangle a peacock (yes, a peacock) and sell someone a hat. I chuckled and continued my rummaging, but my daughter had befriended an itsy, bitsy little calico with watery eyes and the sweetest voice. The kitten batted playfully at my daughter’s fingers and purred in her lap. I knew I was in trouble, but I tried anyway.

“Hey, kiddo. Say goodbye to the kitty. Let’s get going.”

Except it was the kitten didn't want to say goodbye. That kitten clung to my daughter’s t-shirt, and when she finally got it free, the kitten followed at her heels.

“She’s the runt,” said the Peacock wrangler.

“Meep,” said the kitten.

There was no denying that this kitten had adopted us. We got her a soft pink blanket, and she fell asleep in my daughter's arms on the car ride home.

“Find anything good?” asked my husband as we walked in the door.

“Surprise! I got a kitten!” said my daughter.

“Oh. You got a kitten,” said my defeated husband who hates surprises but likes kittens.

“Meep,” said the kitten.

Then she bit me.

She soon earned the moniker Phyllis. Phyllis Killer (get it?!). She invented a fun little game called You Pet Me; I Bite You. She sank those little vampire fangs into me (just me!) on such a regular basis that I am actually shocked I haven't developed evil vampire cat powers. And she pooped so frequently and in so much volume that I swore she was evacuating some sort of demonic presence. But she loved my daughter and she loved my husband, so she stayed.

Church the Cat came around less frequently after Phyllis moved in. They got along well, but I think he must have felt like the odd man out. By the fall, he’d stopped visiting altogether, and I will always deeply regret that. But Church was a rolling stone, and I like to believe that he hitched a ride out West and now sleeps on the windowsill of an aging hippie-turned-mystery-novelist in the middle of the Mojave Desert. I missed Church. We all did; especially Phyllis Killer, who suddenly didn’t have a playmate and turned to clawing the crap out of my bare feet while I slept.

And so it came to pass that a nice lady on Craigslist had an accidental litter of Russian Greys and other assorted misfits. Desperate to fill the void left behind by our vagabond boy, we went to see the kittens. ("We're just going to see!" barked my obviously outnumbered husband.) It was a few weeks before Christmas, and we were full of the Holiday Spirit.

That's where The Darryls entered our story.

I immediately gravitated towards the little grey lady-killer you see above. He was a dead ringer for my Churchy-boy, but with a tail. Trouble was, he was already bonded to his wide-eyed brother, and my inner wanna-be witch was secretly freaking out with excitement over having a black cat of my very own. So the only logical thing was to bring them both home.

But we couldn't find their names. Nothing fit, and they weren't talking.

"We should call them both Darryl," my husband said.

"Like from Newhart?" I said. "Like, 'this is Phyllis and this is her brother Darryl and her other brother Darryl'?"

"Yes! Exactly!"

He and I cackled with laughter while our daughter tried to understand the joke while Darryl and Darryl snuggled contentedly in her arms.

(Here, young'uns. For reference, here's one of them new-fangled GIFs for ya:)

The Darryls, we quickly learned, were delightful little hellions. They were constantly in motion, always wrestling each other, and they loved a good tag-team sneak attack on their adopted big sister. Their personalities grew with them, and these days our little band of merry misfits is complete.

Naturally, Phyllis is the Alpha. She's a Large-and-In-Charge force to be reckoned with, and she neither takes shit nor gives any shits about your feelings. She's bossy and opinionated, and she hates being stuck inside. And I'm beginning to suspect that she's a fan of Ted Cruz. However, she's mellowed out somewhat since she's been spayed, and she often prefers to take naps at the foot of my daughter's bed.

(Author's Note: Have your pets spayed or neutered, folks!! Most states have low-cost spay/neuter clinics like this one.)**

Graveyard Darryl (so nicknamed because his grown-up face resembles a tombstone sculpture) is the meathead. He's a big, lovable oaf who tags along on woodland adventures with his adopted sister and often sleeps on my head for some reason. His brother Darryl has become a mysterious enigma who goes by many names and enjoys disappearing for hours, slinking around corners and spying on his enemies...except he's charmingly and hopelessly stupid and really bad at espionage so more often than not, a sudden commotion in another room is my dear baby Peep (named for the strange baby chick-like sound he often makes) falling off of the kitchen cabinets or accidentally walking into a closed door.

Our little kitty family won't grow again; at least not now. Cats, as they say, should never out-number the humans in a household. (They DO say that, right? Or did I just make that up in my head?) We are pretty content with our family dynamic.

However, Nurmal-our grumpy family Maltese dog-is not. But that's an entirely different story.

**If you're a cat owner in the NEPA area, I HIGHLY recommend The Beckoning Cat Project. They are a fantastic, caring, passionate organization that relies on community generosity. **

**Learn more about how you can help animals in need at: https://www.aspca.org/ways-to-give **