I'm a Cat Person

I love cats. Dogs? Meh. Cats are better at cleaning up after themselves, and they stink way, way less. The little fuckers die though, and that's harsh. So when Randy called last week and asked me to look after his little fuzz ball of love, I was more than happy to do it. Nevermind that I already had a full Sunday planned and the opportunity for a rather expensive practical joke now presented itself.

Saturday I was down in Canal St. on my quadrennial outing to visit the tailor for a fitting. We settled on five very nice shirts that will be ready the first week of October, and I told him NOT to make any allowances for my muffin top, though we did joke a bit about girdles. I needed motivation to get in shape and this was as good a reason as any. So that pretty much ate up my Saturday afternoon. One afternoon just on shirts, I was a little behind schedule given that it was holiday hours.

I had to go back the next day to the suit shop, and even though somebody had generously plugged the meter for me, I cursed every minute I was in there that I hadn't let Kohei buy me a suit in Akihabara like he had offered. After comparing different trousers, and perceiving that the salesman was a little uppity, I took the trousers into the dressing room as he waltzed across the store to fetch the nice pin stripe I had eyed on Saturday. He got about half distance when he loudly inquired, "You're about a thirty-four, correct?" I wanted to play smashy smash with my head and the mirror, but instead I muttered, "Bloody bastard", and congratulated him on his powers of perception. It's a bit of a sensitive issue right now. He chalked me up and decided to give me a discount because he didn't like the quality of the cloth. The cheek! Trying to fob inferior quality trousers off on me. He back tracked quite heavily and said that these were perhaps the finest quality trouser by that marque in all of New York City. Hey, I'm no hard ass and a discount is a discount so I let it be.

As we moved onto the suit, I tried on several different ones because I wasn't exactly sure I remembered what I saw on Saturday and the salesman was a different guy. I think he tried to up sell me. He brought out a natty English number that was a little more fitted and had a really sexy inner lining but I got out of it by showing disdain at the lack of a third button. We went back to the original suit. He took it in at the sides and he had a sale. I'm pretty sure that's the one I saw on Saturday. Too late now, it's been chalked and paid for. What I really wanted actually was the suit that Bobby wore to my wedding, but it probably only looks good on him. About a thousand bucks later and all I got to leave the store with was a pair of socks. That's why it's only once every four years (or more). On the way out of the shop I noticed a nice little lemony seersucker jacket, but the salesman saved my wallet any further damage by quickly mentioning that it was a size 38. I was a size 38 once - at my freshman mixer in high school! I took my socks and walked out.

Oh okay, right. The cat. So I was in Canal St. and I had to get over to Randy's place which is so not near Canal. But first I had a stop to make. I called a model friend of mine and talked her into helping me pull a practical joke. I said it would boost her portfolio, and I'm surprised she bought it. Honestly, though I had fully intended to hand over the digital copies of any and all photographs taken that afternoon. We had the cameras, the nasty props and the photo processing place was on stand-by. We got to Park Slope and got inside alright. Randy had warned me that I might have a problem with his upstairs neighbour, but not a peep. I had my cameras ready, and that's when I noticed the six pack of Red Stripe on the kitchen table, warm as beer should be, and a thank you note. I couldn't do it, the practical joke was off.

Originally Marisol, a vision from Puerto Rico had agreed to make herself very at home and I was going to get a little personal with Randy's stuff, and we were going to leave behind photos. Oh, and feed the cat and whatnot. But the case of Red Stripe technically made it a contract - though the thank you note might indicate that the beer was in fact a gift - and I had to tell Marisol that the gig was off. I was now bound by my sense of agency to carry out the cat wrangling as professionally as possible. I paid Marisol sixty dollars and she waited in the car.

It's been a pretty productive weekend so far: all that and Ali has finished a rough draught of her first immigration form. Pepper had some shmutz so I washed the car and had a nice chat with Danny my gay neighbour. He has a thing about cars, and when he noticed that I was washing Pepper and not Baby, I had to give him the full run down. Double, nay triple gasps when he discovered that I was in fact married and a parent. He laughed hysterically at my Hervé Villechaize joke... at least someone did. We talked about Ali's pending immigration, and the green card issues that a Japanese neighbour had. He made me promise to force Ali to speak English when she gets here, or else she'll be marginalized. I used a very famous line from Dirty Dancing which I won't repeat here because one of the distributors of the film is trying to sue anyone and anything that "profits" from it. My neighbour blanked. I thought for certain that he had seen the movie. Who hasn't?