Suzie and Mr. Tidbits
I typically share nonfiction stories here, but the term cat lady kept coming up in conversations (for some reason), and well, sometimes stories just appear in my imagination fully formed. This is one of those stories.
Suzie had given up on men shortly after she was jilted for the third time. She swore off women when she learned that her sister, then her best friend, then her other sister, respectively, were partly responsible for those jiltings. And she gave up dogs after she had to pay to have the bum leg of her pug amputated, only to be disappointed when the ungrateful thing ran away on three legs just days after his recovery.
So cats became her thing.
A dozen of them lived inside her 350-square-foot loft, and another dozen alley cats frequented her stoop to lap up buttermilk and feast on the occasional tin of smoked oysters. Her loft smelled of ammonia and pine-scented candles, and there was fur more places than there wasn’t. She tolerated the smell and the requisite investment in lint rollers because these things were, after all, preferable to loneliness.
Cats and flights of fancy kept her loneliness at bay. She often daydreamt that one of her cats might be able to talk, to engage, to be with her the way she wanted to be with someone else. One night, on a lark, she prayed as much, not that she was faithfully oriented. Faith required hope, and she was too worried about the next catastrophe to hope for anything.
Still, you can imagine her surprise the morning she woke up to the sounds of a running shower and the humming of Tom Jones’ “What’s New, Pussycat?” Curiosity trumped her fright, and she eased herself into the bathroom, instantly recognizing Mr. Tidbits, her Maine Coon tomcat, the first she adopted after her three-legged puggle blew town.
Though she recognized Mr. Tidbits, he wasn’t his usual self. He was now six feet tall and standing upright, using one paw to steady himself against the shower wall.
“Morning, Suzie.”
“Mr. Tidbits?”
“This water pressure is a dream. It has got my motor runnin’.” Mr. Tidbits purred loud enough that Suzie could hear the rumble even over the sound of the shower. As Mr. Tidbits scrubbed his coat, clumps of fur flung against the tiled walls of the shower. “Heads-up, honey. Probably gonna have to snake this drain before we head out.”
Suzie sold insurance, which she could do on the phone and the computer. Insurance was the business of impending doom, after all, and that was something she could sell because she believed in it with all of her being. Her fear of impending doom, of accidents and acts of god, of treacherous men and duplicitous women, these were the things that compelled her to stay indoors. She had, in fact, not stepped foot from her loft since the George W. Bush presidency.
“Head out?” Suzie asked Mr. Tidbits.
“Yeah, baby.” Mr. Tidbits shut off the water and stepped out of the shower, which was indeed clogged, and began toweling himself off.
“Head out to where for god’s sake?”
“Wherever. Somewhere to celebrate. Maybe Italian?”
“We can’t go out for Italian.”
“Peruvian? Thai? Something with some kick maybe?”
“No!” Her shout startled both of them. The hair on Mr. Tidbits’ spine spiked and his ears flattened against his head. Suzie immediately felt ashamed of her outburst, but the shame didn’t soften her stance. “We can’t go out to eat… We can’t… celebrate.”
Mr. Tidbits nodded and scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, I mean, yeah, okay, it was just an idea.” But it wasn’t just an idea. It was much more, and they both knew it.
Over the next few months, Suzie fought tooth and nail against Mr. Tidbits’ curiosity. She often found him trying to slip through the front door or out the window or up the chimney.
When she scolded him and grabbed him by the scruff, he would say, “But there’s a whole world out there, Suzie.”
“You’ll be locked up, Mr. Tidbits! They’ll run experiments, they’ll neuter you!”
“Maybe, but it’s worth the risk. It’s got to be.”
This argumentative refrain played over Suzie’s practice of increasingly ambitious security measures—locks, cameras, and alarms—and Mr. Tidbits’ YouTube-guided escape efforts.
Eventually, curiosity beat fear, and Suzie once again found herself alone.
Weeks later she received a postcard from Sayulita, Mexico.
Suzie,
I’m sorry. I only have nine lives, and I need to live them.
Yours, Señor Tidbits.
P.S. The fish tacos here are amazing!
Mr. Tidbits sent more postcards, pictures of cityscapes and agrarian valleys, from Ipanema and Shanghai, Kathmandu and Cleveland. They eased the heartbreak, and Suzie began looking forward to them, so much so that she occasionally left her loft to wait for the mail. Not long after that, her excitement shifted from the anticipation of the mail to the mailman himself.
He handed her a postcard from Okinawa, one in which Mr. Tidbits waxed poetic on the delights of Omakase. “It must be wonderful,” the mailman said, “to have such adventurous friends.” Suzie was so used to loneliness, so accustomed to closing herself off, that she hadn’t considered how she might appear to someone else—someone who wasn’t a cat. She managed a small smile. “Yes… I suppose it is.”
Suzie’s thoughts shifted from Mr. Tidbits to the mailman, transformed from anxiety and worry to curiosity and just the slightest flicker of hope. Her days became filled with wonder. “I wonder what he thinks about... I wonder where he sees himself in ten years... I wonder what makes him smile... I wonder…”
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this, you might enjoy Forgiveness County, another story about someone’s unusual relationship with animals. Or you might enjoy Bats, Buttloads, and BB Guns, about the time our family had to contend with a Lovecraftian-level infestation. Or you might read The Life-Saving Virtues of Super Glue, which is a love letter to my wife’s relationship with chickens. Or you might consider reading Dig, a dark crime comedy novella I’ve written that’s less about cat ladies and more about clumsy convicts making any number of bad decisions.
I wonder how she could bear living in 350 square feet with a dozen cats and at least half a dozen litter boxes. I reached my max , and it seemed wherever I looked, there was a cat (or two) at an accidental five cats and three litter boxes in a 750 square foot apartment!
I must say, Mr. Tidbits Abroad was the best photo in this diddy! How funny indeed. And he did get around, didn't he? I would love to see some of the alleys he visited and the cats he met there, from all over the world. Do cats speak multiple languages? How do you teach a cat in English if he only knows French, since he came from France? Must he learn English to live with you, or must you learn French to live with him? Wow, the World is so complex in the animal world, isn't it? Almost as complex as in the human world. A fun, and almost disturbing, read. Right where you like your readers....on the fence post. You should have become a politician. Boy, could you wind the stories, yeah?? Another break in a somewhat boring day, thank you!