A large, pesky mammal arrives at my apartment.

I have had a cat living in my apartment for approximately nine days now. Her name is YT, she is silver and very soft, and she belongs to Simon. She mostly ignores me, except when she wants what I’m eating. Because she was abandoned by her previous owners, she is terribly jumpy about having been transplanted, and skitters beneath the futon whenever she hears a noise, which is rough because I live downtown.

It’s nice to have a cat. But I’ve become obsessed with how weird it is to have an actual, live animal running around in my personal space. And not just a meek little mousy-guy, but a ten-pound predator who could do some serious damage to you if she wanted. It would be like if someone threw a bag of potatoes at you, except with claws, fangs, and a will to destroy.

Like what happens when YT decides to visit the sofa. Goodbye, nice furniture.

And what about litter boxes? That’s messed up. Isn’t it weird to calmly accept animal waste products in your house? Not just the products but the process of making them, too. And that’s without even getting into YT’s propensity for emitting large clouds of noxious gases in my direction. I have an extremely vulgar nickname for her based on this habit, which actually kind of works better than her real name.

Isn’t all this weird??

Pets are a time-honored institution, but like many time-honored institutions, the idea seems more and more alien to me the longer I contemplate it. Like graduation gowns. But we’re not even going to go there right now.

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