Kate From Amtrak, Please Keep Your Cat!

I was on an Amtrak train yesterday, sitting across the aisle from a twentysomething girl who slept eight hours of our 12-hour journey from Montreal to New York City while I gazed lovingly at cell phone pictures of my cat Charlotte and imagined the happy reunion we would enjoy when I got home.

When the girl finally woke up, she got on her cell phone and chatted with a couple of friends and then her mom. My ears perked up when I heard her complaining to her mother about her cat. "I'm thinking of getting rid of her," the girl said.

I immediately started taking notes. Weird, I know. But it is the journalist in me. I knew I would be writing about this.

"She bites when I play with her," the girl said. Eventually, she admitted to her mother that the cat doesn't bite hard.

Looking for another justification to get rid of her cat, the girl told her mother, "I liked her a lot more in the beginning."

The girl also lamented that owning a cat is not as satisfying as owning a dog.

As you can probably imagine, I was freaking out as I listened to this girl.

"Will you help me with this?" she asked her mother. "I don't know who I'd contact. Maybe I could take her to a pet store or a shelter."

"I spent a lot of money on her, but I did like her for the time I had her," the girl added.

I am not a photojournalist, but I felt compelled to snap a photo of this girl. Judging by the quality of this photo, you can see why I am not a photojournalist/cat sitter and am just a regular journalist/cat sitter.



After she got off the phone with her mom, she called a friend, and from that conversation I learned this girl's name was Kate.

Kate chatted with her friend about a guy she was hanging out with who didn't call her for five days, then left her a voicemail claiming he had lost his phone. She was smart enough to know this guy was full of it and not worth her time, which gave me hope, and I debated whether to say something to Kate about her cat. I wanted to implore her to keep her cat. The shelters are already full of cats who need homes, and I am sure her cat loves her and would be heartbroken if she knew that Kate wanted to get rid of her.

But I chickened out and didn't say anything.

Anyway, Kate, if you happen to read Cat Sitter in the City (okay, you probably don't), but if you do, please don't get rid of your cat. While boys will lose their cell phones and drop out of touch for days on end, your cat will always be there for you. Your cat likely doesn't have a cell phone, but if she did, she would always answer on the first ring, and she would be happy to talk to you.

Put in the time and effort to bond with your cat, Kate, and it will blossom into a relationship that you'll treasure for years to come.