Reigning Cats and Dogs

St. Louis, MO
May 1, 2019

Like a terminal patient who learns he has 90 days to get his affairs in order, but that the prognosis was post-marked three months earlier…you’ll be grateful for the silver lining that I have nothing to write about, but mortified by the cloud bringing you this note anyway.

Many of you are probably shrugging your shoulders and wondering how this empty missive would differ from any of the others with which I regularly burden you.

Good question. As is the one you no doubt ask every week when you find one of these essays infesting your inbox.

I am sure each of you turns to your wife, husband, dog, or wall, and asks the same question: why the hell is he writing this, and why does he think I care? 

Delete.

Most people when they are bored pull out their phone to read email, send texts, watch Netflix, scan Facebook, play Words with Friends, or enhance Jeff Bezos’s fortune.

I also pick up my phone…but I do this. 

Rita comforts herself that at least I am not out chasing women. The rest of you probably wish I were. 

My misfortune, and yours, is my proclivity for reading authors who really do (or did) know how to write. Like a teenager who spends a few minutes in the Louvre and then decides to surprise his parents by painting a mural on their bedroom wall, reading great writing inspires the unqualified amateur to write what that unqualified amateur convinces himself will be great…but that his unfortunate readers know will grate. Kind of like that last sentence.

It also can result in a vast collection of books, and insufficient space to store them.

After we hauled a few dozen boxes of Russian-language books from her father’s former home to our current one, my wife marveled in exasperation at the one habit the two men in her life seem to share. 

With those containers now piled in a manner resembling the last scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, beside disconsolate shelves groaning under the weight of my own private Alexandria, Rita again suggested that perhaps a Kindle might be a gift her husband would appreciate.

In my defense, I despise clutter, and accumulate only two things in large quantities: books and wine. Granted, were I married to me, I’d probably prefer my husband collect stamps or coins. 

That said, my vices are at least civilized – in moderation…which is an inherent feature of all civilized things (tho’ not necessarily of my particular collections). And civilized things are a noble source and topic of correspondence. 

But books and wine are not the only accoutrements adorning our humble château. We have also gathered another key element of any rising civilization: domesticated animals.

During the last eight years, while I’ve been reading and drinking away my free time, and writing my way onto your last nerve, we somehow managed to collect a couple cats and (one year ago this week) a dog.

When our last dog ascended to that Great Kennel in the Sky, my consolation was that neither leash nor litter would ever again be conscripted to corral or control fauna in our home. 

But we have two children, and children impress upon their parents a desperate desire for pets. Convincing their father was like pulling impacted teeth. Convincing their mother was like pushing on an open door.

Naturally, our sons assured us, as condition of adoption, that they would manage every aspect of feeding, relieving, watering, and walking these critters. Their parents would be off the hook…as if no beasts were roaming our hardwood Serengeti or upholstered Amboseli. 

That was the deal.

And, honestly, their end wasn’t that hard. Carve out ten minutes a day, scoop and refill a box, pour food and water into a bowl, take the dog into the yard, and get on with your life. 

Simple.

But leave it to teenage boys to screw up a two car funeral procession. 

“Alexander, have you taken care of the cats?”

“Well…not today.”

“They need to be taken care of every day.”

“Oh…”

After a brief recess, the witness returned to the stand, and the prosecutor resumed his line of questioning.

“Did you give them food and water?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks…did you clean their litter box?”

“What?”

Famed American surfer Laird Hamilton once said, “If you don’t understand the wave, you can’t respect it. And if you don’t have respect, it’s only a matter of time before the ocean teaches you to get some.”

Having once been a teenage boy, I have newfound respect for the manner in which my mother respected the adolescent wave. And its undertow. It just keeps coming…on an eternal tide that never goes out, as if the moon were the size of Saturn.

Looking back, I was kidding myself when I agreed to our terms of animal adoption. To make their case our sons should, like golfers stuck in the rough, have needed a better lie. Even at the time I was having trouble believing their pitch. The proposition I’d chosen to accept was one to which no self-respecting adult could accede. 

Of course, even had I been right about the level of responsibility my sons were likely to assume, I’d probably still have been wrong. 

My situation was like one many (other) men face when trying to win an argument with their wife. They have only about a 20% chance of being right…and even if they win the argument, they are bound to suffer for it anyway. 

In a few years, even in my optimistic scenario, both sons will be gone…but their parents will be stuck with the pets.

That’s OK. These varmints have become part of our family. When we are harried and haggard, their purrs and wags lift our spirit and lighten our load. 

As the Scotsman wrote, the greatest gift the gods can give is to see ourselves as others see us. 

From time to time, our sanity and vanity demand that we see ourselves from the perspective of our sycophantic pets, who run the show while letting us think we are in charge.

Jerry Seinfeld once suggested a thought experiment. Imagine a Martian comes to Earth and sees a four-legged creature dragging a two-legged creature down a street. The first of these appears to set the tone, confidently leads the other, and leaves periodic deposits that his companion picks up…and carries around for him. 

Who, in this scenario, would our alien think is the boss?

Be that as it may, we bask in the misconception that the domestic creatures, biped and quadruped, who roam our home, will bend to our will, abide our rules, and affirm our sovereignty…or at least our suzerainty. 

Secure in our self-deception, we can curl up and rest, snug in the lap of a delusive peace and elusive liberty. 

Until, like a sudden realization we forgot to unplug the iron, a thought disturbs our slumber. 

And we shudder at Goethe’s admonition that no one is more hopelessly enslaved…than he who falsely believes he is free. 

JD