Leave the Cat Ladies Alone!

If you live in the country, it's almost inevitable that at some point in time you will end up dripping with cats. They show up at your house, you adopt them from a neighbor, you have a mouse problem, another one shows up at your house.

As a current reluctant and confused suburban dweller, I've downsized to one cat, the fluffy, chubby, toothless and loveable Oscar Meyer Weiner-Lockman. I am madly in love with him, as I was with Sadie, until my dad fell madly in love with her and decided to keep her in West Virginia forever. Oscar is my Colorado cat and my life would be much gloomier without him.

At this point, I'm somewhat of a caricature of a cat lady in-training. There's a litter box in my bedroom. If that isn't a deterrent to potential suitors, the fact that Oscar loves to step on faces and jugular veins could be. I don't know. I find it all hilarious and loveable.

So why do women who have cats that they love get so much flack? I mean, I love a good joke at someone else's expense as much as the next person, but there's nothing wrong with a woman who has a cat. Or even two or three. Everybody needs to love and be loved, and sometimes a pet is the easiest way to guarantee that you'll get and give love. Just imagine if every person who is sometimes lonely and has a pet to help combat that loneliness, had a child instead of that pet.

We'd be overpopulated in a millisecond.

That's not to say that pet ownership is only for people who are lonely. That's obviously not true. But the lonely are the ones who get the most shit about it. And the women who have cats, especially women who are single or live alone, get even more shit about it than men. Because, I don't know, it's unnatural for a woman to have a cat instead of a child. (I have no idea. I'm assuming that's why there's this sexist stigma around "cat ladies").

You see, some people are young or old or sick or brokenhearted or going through major changes or busy or happy and for any or all of the above reasons, pets become almost as important as the people in their lives. Sometimes, as much as their bodies want them to be popping out babies left and right, their brains know that having a cat to love on is much wiser than entering a relationship with someone they meet on OkCupid! whose religion is "Dude-ism."

I have no doubt that when the time comes for me to have babies and another significant other it will happen. But for now, sharing my bed with Oscar is as much as I can deal with. It's not because I'm crazy. It's because I can move the litter box when company comes over. It's much easier than trying to find a baby sitter, or ignore the crushing weight of loneliness.

So come on over boys!

Oscar's waiting to snuggle....