For folks like me who aren’t reproducing, housing a pet is the only real opportunity to try to generate authoritarian resentment. With this in mind, my wife and I adopted a 15 year old cat five years ago, seen here laughing at a joke I told him about a bird. Though I’ll refrain from the typical animal obit pablum (“the truth is – he rescued us”), I will say that his presence brought measurable peace to our home and happiness to our days. We meshed well because our pace was in alignment – he’d allow us our late nights or out-of-town weekends, and he shared our steadfast and literal commitment to Netflix and chill. He relied on us for all the standard owner-responsibilities – food service, proper quarters, and the regimented sifting of the shit-box. But soon enough it went well beyond that. He was not a basement-dweller or an under-the-bed sort of personality. Once we earned his approval, he was as attached to us as the clothes on our backs. I’ll spare you the list, but there really wasn’t anything done in our home for which he wasn’t present.
When you get a 15 year-old pet, they tend to come pre-named. We don’t know much about his life prior to our introduction, other than that he had been owned and abandoned, spent some time on the street, and eventually landed at the shelter via some Samaritan whose doorstep he darkened. Somewhere along that path he took the name Sphinx, and this is how we met his acquaintance. It didn’t last. We meant no disrespect, but we tended to refer to him for two to three week segments by whatever was top of mind (and if it made us laugh, that didn’t hurt). Junior…Black Sack…Mr. Puddles. When we were watching The People vs O.J. Simpson a few years ago, he was Uncle Juice. The last few weeks of his life we referred to him warmly as Old Dollar – the name of John Wayne’s horse in a movie he watched from my lap over the lazy afternoons around Christmas . It suited him, as he negotiated his last days with the urgency of an inchworm.
There have been plenty of studies that demonstrate the positive impact that animals – and cats in particular – can have on your health. They reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease, boost your immune system, and lower blood pressure and cholesterol. I’m hesitant to assign meaning and weight where it’s not warranted, but it’s been a stressful year here at DOD and I’d rather not speculate on how sunless it might have gotten around here had I not been able to experience his daily lap-nap. And that’s the thing that all pet-people understand – you can come to them the weight of the world, but you’re met with bulletproof exuberance. I will miss that, and will struggle to tackle the anxieties of the day without him.
Anyway…rest in peace Old Dollar. I’m hoping you’re bellied up at the great Tuna Tavern in the sky (copyright: my wife).
Save a spot on the couch for us.
