Excerpts from the Peanut Gallery

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

Sometimes you go back in your mind and rehash why some relationships just didn't work out. This week the possibility of new family members has reminded me often of one such relationship. It was doomed from the start. His name was George. I was a fourth-year university student, caught in the fire of midterms and a busy work schedule. i was stressed and overworked and living in a cramped apartment with two other girls. I wanted so much to get out and get away from it all. George was young, energetic and free. My roommates tried to convince me that he would be the perfect thing to get my mind off stress, that he would lighten things up.

I feel bad about it now. I really do think George was different than the others. If there was any one of his kind that i could get along with it, it would be him. I think I was just too prejudiced to see it. There really were two things that stood in the way of me getting over myself and my prejudice. I guess it really comes down to the fact that he didn't give me my space, something that I craved at that time in the semester. First, he made the fatal mistake of following me incessantly during a period when i was rather stressed. The other thing that George did was that he decided that what was mine was his. Now don't get me wrong, i am all for sharing in relationships- any type of relationship. I want to be one of those people who hold the things of this world lightly. But he crossed the line. He tried to steal my pillow!

The real problem though, always goes back to my first impression of him. It was the first thing I noticed about him. George was a cat. I have always been more of a dog person, I grew up with a dog and I remember those inane fancy feast commercials with the fat Persian on a purple silk cushion being fed cat food in a crystal glass on a silver platter. I resented that cat and everything it stood for- I resented the egotistical, self-serving, pompous lifestyle of the rich and famous that didn't serve to better the world at all. That was my view of cats. They sat on cushions all day and demanded that you cater to their every whim, never getting up to tell you that they loved you or that they wanted to play with you.

George was one of the few cats I have met who wanted to play. He followed me all over our 50sq.ft in that shoebox apartment. I think he even wanted to go for a walk. I didn't know what to do with that- it caught me off guard. But there was still the issue of the pillow. My roommates thought George was adorable. They loved him. Yet, he did not select their pillows to be his bed. He did not paw across their comforters, pat their pillows and then firmly plant his little buttocks on their principle headrest, right in the dent that their faces had left the night before. He did not stretch out and roll around and wiggle his bottom into their goose-down until he had it just right. But he did to mine. I had to draw the line somewhere.

So George and i had a talk. i told him that I thought he was alright and maybe if i had more time to get to know him, we could be friends. But i needed him to give me my space first. It just wasn't working out, I knew it, and my roommates knew it. I don't think George really cared. And someone else did own him, after all, so he did have to go back to his real home. He took it alright. I feel bad about it now. Should I have tried more? Did I just not give him the chance?

My parents were batting around the idea of new dogs. I know some might say that I am playing it safe when it comes to relationships, and maybe I am, but what is so bad about that? I know what I need in my life and what i am capable of giving. Maybe George was out of my league, or maybe we were just fated to fail. But I have learned my lesson and I am ready to start fresh, taking with me the things I have learned from our relationship (close the door when you are trying to write term papers and hide the pillows under your covers). I would also like to thank George for changing my perceptions of his kind. I am more open to getting to know an animal before i make a decision on it. But i also know my type and I am stickin' with it- puppies!

posted by Kiki @ 9:56 p.m.