CAT PANDEMIC

 

CatmanDeux after lunch.

Just when you think the pandemic can’t get any more tedious, along comes your cat to mix it up.  Today (Sunday) I woke up and took a good bit of time to figure out what day of the week it was. The rest of the day flowed from there.

My husband, all suited up like a nuclear plant worker for a safe trip to Costco, asked for a grocery list. While doing that I completely forgot my live-streaming Pilates class, for which I had already paid.  I rushed downstairs, followed by the cat, and rolled out my new, extra-foamy mat.  While I set up the computer on the floor and checked into the class in progress, I was distracted by the sound of shredding foam.  That is when I remembered it was the cat’s lunchtime.

CatmanDeux was a sleek 12 pounds when he was picked up on the streets of Staten Island, shipped to a Mary’s Kitty Korner in Granby, Connecticut, and promptly adopted by us.  Four years later, he is an obese 17 pounds and whines for every meal…as he did throughout the entire Pilates class.  When I didn’t respond to the incessant whining, he expressed his displeasure by knocking everything—piece by piece—off a nearby tabletop while I tried to complete “The 100” on my shredded mat.

There is no happy ending to this story, except that the cat did get his lunch after class.  Otherwise, one day is so much like another that it is hard to remember what day it is, which Zoom event is coming up, and when it’s time to feed the cat.  It is enough to make anyone whine.

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About Alexis

Alexis Rankin Popik, author of Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate, is an award-winning short story writer whose work has appeared in The Berkshire Review and Potpourri Magazine. She has penned numerous articles about local history that have been published in Connecticut Explored and the University of Connecticut School of Law and The Hartford Seminary publications. A former union organizer, Popik traveled the country educating shipyard workers about health and safety and founded a labor-management health plan before turning to writing fiction full-time. She lives with her husband in New England.
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