The Cat Lady Of Roenicke Place

You can see these people coming from a mile away. A lot of the people that call me are pretty stressed out by the time I answer the phone, but some have a little something extra going on in their voice. It's that little bit of nervousness that people who may not have the greatest of social skills get when they're talking to strangers. You can just listen to them and you know something is not right, and this is sad, but it is not the point. The point is sometimes these people have 18 cats, and I can't help but think this is sad also.

Animals are great, I love my dog Kinka, she's a great pal, has been for years. It's never occurred to me to get her a dog so she'd have company. That's the reason a lot of people get a 2nd pet, and sometimes even a 3rd. Sometimes people don't stop there. In some cases, like the cat lady of Roenicke Place, 8 is not enough, neither is 18, she has 19. 19 cats in a 1.5 bedroom apartment, a small one at that.

Do you know what that smells like? If you're in Manhattan right now where it's 100 degrees, go outside and smell the garbage on the nearest curb, 10x worse. You walk in to these people's homes and you're overwhelmed and you just know it's not going away, you're not going to get used to it. It's disgusting.

It's easy to believe these people are filling up a void in their life with their animals, in fact there's nothing wrong with that. Like I said I love Kinka, and I will be very sad when she's no longer there to greet me at the end of the day. However, I don't see her as a replacement for family, and I don't think I ever could. She has a different role than that, maybe nearly as important, but different.

And this got me to thinking about whether people who were really filling a void in their lives with pets, the cat lady who is not likely to ever get married, this girl N. who
has two pugs that are obviously sibs for the kids she won't have; are actually creating a family or joining a pack, or engaging in someting else altogether.

And I'm trying not to make any value judgements, but I don't see how it's possible that these relationships we have with animals can even begin to fill the needs that family does. While I'm at it, I have a hard time believing that people can really be happy alone in the long run. I'm not so sure about kids, but I don't even like them that much, and I kind of want them, not that I could begin to tell you why.

This train of thought was largely sparked when a newish friend of mine, got a 2nd dog. She had gotten the 1st recently and over several drinks, it got me and e to wondering how many cats and/or dogs were enough. Near as we can tell, a single adult living alone certainly crosses the line when they have either.

a. 4 or more cats
b. 3 or more dogs
c. Any combination of 4 cats and dogs
d. 1 really odd animal (pig, duck, etc..) and any 2 cats and dogs.

Now, while these numbers are certainly argueable, there was some sense behind this.

Do what you will with this.