The Talky Crew
I went to cat duty today. I never go on Tuesday and I think I now know why; it's the talky day. Very nice people who won't shut up. Volunteers, not customers, which is what made it so strange. All I wanted to do was hang with the kitties and give them extra love and it turned into Chatfest 2009.

There was the volunteer who kept asking me about Lola* (*All the cat names have been changed to protect the innocent.) Lola is a "red cat" who can be a real handful. She takes all your attention. So having some woman asking you, in one breath (take a big breath here and read this out loud): "How long have you been a volunteer? Do you work only with red cats? Have you worked with Lola before? How do you know what to expect? Do you shave or wax your bikini line?" (OK, I made the last one up.) But she wanted to know all about working with Lola. Which is fine....just not when I'm working withLola. Ask me later. But distracting me when I'm working with a cat known for biting the limbs off unsuspecting volunteers is not the way to endear yourself to me. To make matters worse, her constant chatter freaked out poor Lola, who then took it out on me. I had to cut the visit short, without taking her out of her cage, because she was getting so stressed from two people looking at her.

Then there was Mr. Nice Guy. Who really was nice but who also came into the rooms when I was doing one-on-one with the cats to give them some two-on-one, which sounds dirty but really wasn't. I'm not sure why he didn't just take his own cats out, but this volunteer apparently just wanted to hang and chat so he kept coming in where I was. Odd. Um, hello, there are dozens of cats that need attention so why are you ignoring them to be with me and the cat that I'm socializing? He came in when I was with Milo*, one of my favorite cats, and completely ruined my rhythm. With Milo there's a ritual. First play, then catnip, finally pets and combing. But when Mr. Nice Guy came in during catnip time Milo didn't know what to do? Do I go back to playing? Is it petting time? Who is this man and why is he here? I didn't want to be rude, but I was wondering why he didn't go get his own cat. (And before you think "hitting on you" he was about 70 and talked a lot about his wife.)

Finally there was the volunteer who told me WAY too much about herself. I mean sure, make polite small talk. Say hi. Discuss the cats. But for the love of cheese do not tell me about your divorce, your shoulder operation, your much younger boyfriend, your cat's digestive problems, and why you think your church choir director is having an affair. I mean I don't know your name and now I know how often Mr. Fluffy poops. Thanks, really needed to know that.

For me the oddest one of the day wasn't one of the volunteer's who kept trying to make conversation -- it was the looker. She kept looking through the windows of the room where I was socializing cats. When I went into one of the cat condos, she looked. When I was socializing a cat in her cage because all the rooms were busy, she looked. It was kind of freaking me out? Was my fly open? Did she think I was hot? Did she think I was going to try some weird voodoo experiment with a cat, a chicken, a black candle and some bastardized Latin?

I think I'll stick to my regular cat socializing days. Tuesdays are too weird.