wanted: kitty cat play date

I think my cat is disappointed in me.

The realization hit me tonight as I was rummaging through my fridge, scavenging for food...no cat. If there's one thing I can usually count on, it's that I'll be greeted by the sight of his crazy-sideways run rushing to meet me at the door each night when I come home. Usually. Tonight I moved around my apartment, meowing-dervish-free and, when I thought about it, I realized that last night was sans cat as well. Although my first inclination was to go and look for him, it was my second inclination that won - the one that said "Hey, this is nice! He's not going anywhere, finish your dinner". My reaction, or lack of, wasn't quite as blasé as it may sound, I knew he was in the apartment somewhere and it was kind of nice to NOT trip about the apartment for once.

It didn't take long to find him. As I turned the corner to move from the kitchen to the bedroom I stopped in my tracks: there he was. Looking at me. Any teenager who has broken curfew knows ''the look'. The one you get when concern has faded to relief before turning into disappointment; that reproachful, wordless stare that says "How could you?" and "I expected more ". Apparently my cat knows 'the look' too. And he wasn't in a forgiving mood; my conciliatory approach was met by his hasty retreat beneath the bed.

I retreated to think about this surprising turn of events. My cat was mad at me. What to do, what to do? I ran the possibilities through my mind. Food? Check. Water? Check. What else is there? Having been raised in the land of dogs, I'm pretty fluent in dog but cat? Now that's a language that is still foreign to me. Language barrier aside, as I thought about the past week I realized that I don't need to be fluent in cat to know that the fact that I was able to count our human-cat interactions over the last several weeks in minutes was NOT a good thing. I've been ignoring my cat, no wonder he's upset with me.

For some inane reason, this realization reminded me of the mid-80's brat pack movie "The Breakfast Club". The one where Molly Ringwald played the 'prom queen', Judd Nelson 'the delinquent', Emilio Estevez 'the jock', and Ally Sheedy...well, I forget her label...but that's kind of the point. When all is said and done, when lunch has been eaten, drugs imbibed and romantic ties forged, the characters share the source of their collective angst: their parents.

One is abusive, another has high expectations and yet another uses their daughter as a pawn in their divorce. All of this pales in comparison, however, to the pain incurred by Ally Sheedy at the hands of her parents. When pressured to share her story with the group, Ally Sheedy looks up from under her shaggy bangs, pale skin shining luminously, eyes lined with heavy black kohl and dejectedly whispers "they ignore me". She wins the 'whose parents are worst' contest, hands down. Physical abuse, overwhelming expectations, messy divorce - none could stand up to the stark reality of being ignored.

I'm living with the kitty cat equivalent of Ally Sheedy. What I think are random (and lets be honest, irritating) meows are probably cries for help; anguished pleas to the birds flying by and people passing below in the hopes that someone, anyone, will hear his pain: "she ignores me".

I'll have to start closing the windows ;)