The Post Where I Become A Cat AND A Coffee Critic. Because That's A Real Thing*.

I love coffee.

And I love cats.

But, because Jon has decided to be selfish allergic to cats, the type of joy one takes in the mundane everyday stuff of life has been thrown all lopsided like. Awry. Disproportional. Irregular. Strabismic. Yes. Strabismic, Jon.

Even the cats feel it.

But!

Then!

I started hearing rumors about a new coffee shop opening up in my neighborhood.

Me: (in my head) Cool. A new coffee shop to try out. Maybe they'll have good snacks..... For the children.

BUT!!

THEN!!

People started saying it was going to have cats!

Me: (internally. hopefully.) CUTE LITTLE KITTIES!?! REALLY!?! I'll hold them and squeeze them and love them FOREVER!!!!

Suddenly, my morning runs took on a whole other purpose as I systematically, in a logical grid like manner, began to scour the neighborhood streets for an empty storefront with a sign placed in the window that said something along the lines of:

CATS HERE! 

COFFEE HERE! 

MARTHA! WE OPEN NEXT TUESDAY! 

COME! SPEND ALL YOUR DAYS HERE!

DRINK COFFEE! 

PLAY WITH CATS! 

JON NEVER HAS TO KNOW! 

P.S. The cats love you. 

A lot.

And, one morning, I kid you not, I found it, just blocks from Katie's school.  It was all curled up in the rain, with it's tail over it's nose, cozy and cuddly, purring away.

Yes, buildings purr.

(Shut up.)

And, my mind flew off on a flurry of imagniariums.

Each image

more

fantasmical

than

the

next.

My life was going to look exactly like that! Drop the kids at school. Walk to the coffee shop. Play with cats. Pick the kids up from school. Go to bed. Wash, rinse and repeat. Every! Day!

But, first, I thought it would be nice to share with the children my new found life goal of spending 16 hours a day, minimum, at the cat coffee shop. Because, as every parenting class teaches you, as parents of young children we need to take care of ourselves first so we can take care of the children. Later. After we play with the cats.

So, after school the next day, Katie, Ellie and I skipped over to the cat coffee shop. We sang Ellie's "Cat Song" the whole way. Because she's five. And she asked us to. (Spoiler Alert: Ellie's song has just one word, "meow". Repeated over and over and over. Sung. You guessed it. Loudly.)

But.

Then?

On the door, there was a sign. It said:

CHILDREN UNDER 8 YEARS OF AGE, ARE NOT ALLOWED IN CAT ROOM.

Me: (in my head) Well....shoot..... Wait. Dude! I'll just, you know, go over that whole stranger danger thing again with Ellie and buy her a cookie. She'll just sit at a table. She'll be fiiiiiine. (out loud) Would you like a cookie, Ellie?

Ellie: Meow!

Me: (in my head, again) Problem. Solved.

But.

Then....

I read further down the sign. And it said:

RESERVATIONS REQUIRED TO VISIT CAT ROOM.

Me: (thinking quickly) Shoot. I don't have a reservation. Wait! I buy both girls only one cookie. I make them split it, and then, while the staff are distracted by the inevitable "I don't want to share with my sister diversion" this will create, I'll just sneak into the cat room! No one will know! Brilliant!

But.

Then....

The sign ended with these words:

CAT ROOM, $10 AN HOUR PER GUEST.

And my heart broke.

Because I did math.

And, even without Katie's help I know, 16 hours X $10 is more than my daily budgeted latte expenses.

By a lot.

So this. This is as close as we got to cats that day.

And, as we wiped the last of the cat shaped cookie crumbs from our hands, we finally left the cat coffee shop. Shoulders drooping. Dragging our woebegone selves home. Through the rain.

But, somehow? I don't think we were the only disappointed ones.

* This is the internet. I don't lie about these kinds of things:

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