Sharing a home with multiple roommates can be tricky. You may think you know people, but you don’t really know them until you’ve cohabitated. For a time in college, I shared a house with four roommates. Thankfully, we each had our own bedroom, but we all used the same kitchen and bathroom. College students are typically content to live in a cluttered abode and wear clothes plucked freshly from the floor — or was that just me?
Anyway, most of my roommates were as messy as I was, but there was one OCDish roomie in the mix. He spent most of his time sighing, picking up after us girls, and basically cramping our pigsty-style. We were just as annoyed with him as he was with us, but rent was cheap so we put up with one another.
Like humans, cats have their own unique personalities. I’ve never quite understood people lumping all cats together as a group of no-personality slugs who lie around and never demonstrate quirks of any kind. In addition to my human family, I currently share living quarters with three fuzzy feline roommates, and I’m here to say they definitely have quirks. I recently mused about what it would be like if my three furballs were human roommates. Here are the results of that musing.
1. Saffy, the one who eats everyone’s food
As it is, Saffy is a major food poacher of cat and human chow alike. If she were a human roommate, she’d regularly open the fridge and grab whatever looked tasty at the time. I’d come home from work, salivating for that little paper carton of leftover General Tso’s Chicken, and it would be M.I.A. The only sign of its one-time existence would be the empty carton, flipped on its side on the kitchen counter, with dried soy sauce splats on the linoleum.
I’d find her passed out on the sofa, The Bachelor blaring from the TV and a half-eaten eggroll resting on her chest. And she’d always play dumb about the whole thing: “What? I thought it was totally up for grabs!” And then she’d burp. Yeah, I’m glad she’s a cat — nobody messes with my General Tso.
2. Cosmo, the one with no boundaries
Cosmo is a real mama’s boy and, I’ll admit it, he’s pretty darned needy. He follows me everywhere and just about has a panic attack when a door separates the two of us. Although I love this behavior in my darling pussycat, I feel like it might get a little annoying in someone with two legs.
As a human roommate, I could see him constantly calling and texting, “Where are you? Can I come with you? Why wasn’t I invited?” He’d sit right on top of me on the sofa, even though there’d be plenty of open seating. I’d ask him to scoot down a bit, and he’d slowly inch his way back toward me. And he’d also be a close-talker with zero regard for anyone’s personal space. Remember that Seinfeld episode where that guy stood way too close to everyone when he spoke to them? Yeah, that’d be Cos. Sweet kitty, your quirks are much better suited to the whiskered set.
3. Phoebe, the one who’s always talking
Phoebe is never at a loss for words. She responds when I speak to her, and her sharp sassy meow always has to be the final word in any “conversation.” She’d be the roommate who talks nonstop during movies — both at home and in the theater. She’d also be that person who acts like she’s listening to my story, but really she’s just impatiently waiting until I finish speaking so she can lunge ahead with her story. Before I’d have my morning coffee, she’d try to tell me the elaborate details of what happened on her date the previous night. Yes, she’d pop right out of bed rarin’ to go, no caffeine necessary. And boy would she gossip. I’d know everybody’s business, whether I wanted to or not.
The truth is, I adore her overly chatty mews and would take them over a gossipy, human conversation hog any day.
Although it endlessly amuses me to think about my cats eating Chinese food, texting, and sitting beside me at the movies, I’d never, ever want them as human roommates. Plus, I think if they ever started sniffing my butt, I’d freak out a little.
If your cats were your human roommates, what kind of quirks would they have? Tell us about them in the comments!
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