If the pants fit.

It’s a little disconcerting, but people keep talking to me about cats. I know. One of my readers wrote to me, “you mean you don’t have cats? I just always assumed you did.” And one of the excellent 14 year olds I know sat down next to me the other day and out of the blue started talking about crazy cat ladies. I did learn some important stuff from her: if you have one cat, you just have a cat. Two cats, still okay, you have a cat, and the cat has a companion. Three cats, and you’re crazy. Okay, got that. But why did she bring this up with me?

A short time later, I had coffee with one of my favorite people, I., who, unprompted, started talking about, yes, cats. The conversation started off to be about procrastination, and we both had a lot to say. But then she said, “for example, I haven’t even been to your blog yet.” I was all, wait, that’s what people do when they are procrastinating. It’s something you find yourself doing when you’re supposed to be doing something else, like writing that letter to your ex-sister-in-law or doing the dishes.” But anyway, without having been here, she started talking about Emily, the cat with locked-in syndrome. Emily follows the conversation by shifting her stare to the person talking, but never says anything. That seems creepy to me, but I guess they like it.

But why did she bring up the cat to me? I do confess that Emily is a good name for a cat, not one of those ironic or literary names that says, look at me, I am so smart that my cat is named after some obscure character from one of the great works. (Okay, I just googled ironically named cats, and there’s a lot out there, but I ended up at a website that had a list of literary names for your pet. But they were names like, “Harry Potter,” with an explanation of where that name comes from. Um, if you have to look that up, I’d say you’re better off naming the cat Fluffy, but that’s just me.)

But here’s the real point. Yesterday at work, while I was on the e-mail with T., (do you like how I called it, “the e-mail”?) Anyway, the co-worker we’ll call J. came along, “Betsy, what size is your inseam?” “Um, why do you ask?” Because, I have some Carhart overalls that don’t fit anymore, and I was wondering if you’d like them.”

Does that seem weird to you guys? Seriously, when you have pants that don’t fit, do you go around asking your co-workers their pants size, or do you just put them in the goodwill box? I brought this up to J. “Um, couldn’t you just put them in the giveaway box?”

“Oh, but these are Carharts, really good ones, I just thought you might like them.”

“I dunno,” I said, “I have enough trouble with the whole cat impression problem without wearing the used logger-brand overalls of a 60 year old man,” which, unfortunately, seemed to insult him. But you see my point, right?

I wrote to T. about this as it was unfolding, who thought it was the funniest thing ever, and replied, “oh, I just wrote the most hilarious response, but it turns out I’m way too sensitive of a guy to write it to you on County e-mail. I am still wondering what it was, and I’m sure it was very funny.