Dear Pet Lady,
I got a kitten three days ago and she is as cute as can be. I named her Yazsa because she’s half American, Ya-ya, and half Hungarian, Zsa Zsa. I know that because she told me. Anyway, I have eight roommates. Now they all want to get a kitten too. Yazsa is a wild beast; do you think our furniture would be shredded if we had nine? And what if Yazsa turns out to be a dog in a cat suit and eats all the others? I’m worried.
The Pet Owner
Dear Young Lady,
The Pet Lady fears she can only begin to respond to your missive by stating the obvious: Your new pet and, in fact, your own self are indeed cute—horribly, obscenely so—and cute is a word the Pet Lady generally refrains from deploying.
The Pet Lady notes that your letter was postmarked San Francisco, Calif., and that you apparently live in some sort of hippie-commune type arrangement, and she would like to assure you that she does firmly support the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes (glaucoma, malaise, etc.). That your cat is speaking to you is no real cause for alarm, but you must cease your paranoid fretting as to the nature of your beast within its fur “suit.” Take a deep breath and exhale. Now, isn’t that better?
In her youth, the Pet Lady lived for a time in old Frisco too, and like you, lovely young lady, in a hippie-commune type arrangement. One day the guitar-playing barefoot longhaired girl of the household came to the Pet Lady with a concern about the nature of a strange string protruding from beneath the icebox. The Pet Lady agreed to assist with an immediate investigation, and she and Guitar Girl went to the kitchen and stood in thoughtful contemplation of said string, which was just as Guitar Girl had reported. As neither the Pet Lady nor Guitar Girl was eager to grasp the mysterious string, a clothespin was found, attached to it, and pulled. What emerged? The rear half of a decaying, deceased mouse, the tail of which was the mysterious string.
The moral of this cautionary tale is: You can never have too many cats, furniture be damned.
Peace,
The Pet Lady
Mysterious strings? Send a photo to thepetlady@seattleweekly.com or The Pet Lady, c/o Seattle Weekly, 1008 Western, Ste 300, Seattle, WA 98104.
