Stay Together for the Kids: A cat owner’s guide to navigating divorce
Like any other single, eligible girl with top-notch gentleman suitors lining up to court her, I have two cats. Mind you, these are not your typical cats. The first, and eldest, at approximately six years, is Vinnie. Vinnie is a tabby domestic short hair who weighs in at a solid 15 pounds (down from his original 18) and enjoys playing in the empty bathtub, sunbathing on the sofa, and scratching the scratching post despite his lack of front claws. I absolutely adore Vinnie. He is more cuddly than any other cat you’ve ever met, and only lets you hold him if he can put his paws around your neck, as if you are being hugged by a baby, or in Vinnie’s case, an obese toddler.
The second feline in my life goes by the name of Zazzles. At approximately two years old, she takes her name from a hilarious episode of ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and has tortoise shell coloring. Having once lived on the tough streets of Bushwick where she had to hustle for food and follow slightly intoxicated college students in the hopes of finding shelter, she is an independent spirit and a force to be reckoned with. Also, she has a really pink mouth, which reminds me of a baby.
Now, you’re probably thinking that two cats is a lot for such a fabulous, completely single, completely available, completely looking to date and into dudes with beards kind of girl to handle. But you see, it is not just me, Vinnie, and Zazzles in this happy picture, but rather me, Vinnie, Zazzles, and my roommate who, for the sake of her privacy, we will call Karen.
Karen and I began our roommate relationship our sophomore year of college and have been roommates in a 2-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn for a little over half a year now. After we settled into our new abode, we realized something was missing. We longed to be awoken by a food-crazed animal at six in the morning, we wanted our furniture (read: singular couch) to be covered with fur, we yearned for our living room to be host to a plastic box where small animals could relieve themselves multiple times a day.
Enter Vinnie. Karen and I adopted Vinnie from the animal shelter Animal Haven in SoHo. Vinnie filled all of the holes in our otherwise dull lives, but after a while, it became clear that Vinnie was feeling lonely as an only child. Having grown up all my life with cats, I spent a great deal of time explaining to Karen how cats do much better in pairs, that they entertain each other, and thus keep one another from meowing in the living room in between two open bedrooms at four in the morning in the hopes that one of their parents will come out and play with them. Not that that’s ever happened. Or that I’m bitter about it.
Karen was a hard egg to crack in regards to the second cat issue, until the night Zazzles walked into our lives. We met Zazzles one evening while walking to our friend’s apartment. She came right up to us, meowing and rubbing against our legs. Karen and I jokingly agreed that, if Zazzles was still there when we came back from our friend’s apartment, we would take her home. Approximately three hours later, we found Zazzles waiting for us. She followed us six blocks to our apartment, where Karen picked her up and brought her upstairs, where she lived in our bathroom for a few weeks until we got her medically cleared to hang out with Vinnie.
And that’s how we became the happy family that we are today. But, like any other family, we have our issues. Our issues aren’t actually important, or dramatic, or anything close to a problem, so for that reason I will omit them from this story, but I will say that it is these issues that cause me to be asked a certain question by concerned citizens and other people that I have created in my fictitious blogosphere world: what happens to the cats if you and Karen split up (as roommates, not lesbians, mom)?
This question pains me to think about. What would happen to the cats should Karen and I meet our untimely demise, or if I have to move out to move in with my new, burly, bearded boyfriend who works at a cupcakery/night club? The latter would clearly happen long before the former, but in order to be prepared for either situation, I have created the following guide to navigating a roommate divorce in regards to our furry children.
1. Visitation
As the primary caregiver to Vinnie and Zazzles (you know it’s true, Karen, so don’t start with me again), I would, of course, get them during the week, and Karen would get them every other weekend. Holidays would be open to negotiation (meaning Karen would get them for Canadian holidays, and I would get them for real holidays).
2. Child Support
Having furry kids is expensive. There’s the food, the cat litter, the unnecessary toys, the outfits for holiday card pictures… It could bankrupt anyone. Now, I don’t want anyone thinking that I would, in ANY way, mooch off of Karen, but nonetheless I expect her to financially support the felines whose lives she was an integral part of up until I met my bearded soul mate. Now, I’m not entirely sure how child support works, and I have a feeling no court of law will pay any respect to a child support claim made for someone named Zazzles, but I will make it entirely clear that I have legal representation who, should I pay her large amounts of money and promise her many grandchildren, will put her career on the line to fight for what Vinnie and Zazzles deserve, which I believe is lots and lots of monies.
3. Buying their Love
Often times when a couple with children get divorced, each parent feels obligated to buy their children things in order to buy their affection. To that I say, Go for it, Karen. Buy them crap on the side, fight for their love, but at the end of the day, it was still you who spent late nights at the bar, forgetting to come home and feed them their moist salmon and white fish dinner*.
*Hypothetical explanation of why this hypothetical roommate divorce has occurred in the first hypothetical place. Hypothetical.
4. New Members of the Family
No matter how much we fight to stay as the happy family we are, laughing and hugging as we make the exchange of our furry children on Karen’s weekend to have them, in a public place so as to avoid name calling and racial slurs, there are bound to be new relationships, and new people coming into Vinnie and Zazzles’ lives. In order to avoid anymore unnecessary pain for Vinnie and Zazzles, I will require that they not be introduced to any new beaus, suitors, callers, or potential platonic life partners until it is certain that these people are not going to up and walk out of their life, leaving them even more wounded and likely to go into kitty stripping and/or porn due to their unresolved father issues.
5. New Living Situations
I can’t deny the fact that my furry children are going to be messed up after experiencing the divorce of their parents, so I think it’s only logical that Karen and I make every possible arrangement to maintain a healthy situation for them. I myself will no doubt be living with my future husband in his artist’s loft in Williamsburg, drinking organic, free-trade coffee as I sit with Vinnie and Zazzles on either side of me, the three of us staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows as my activist boyfriend designs buttons for (insert latest hipster political trend here) at his desk, the latest Belle and Sebastian record playing softly in the distance. I do not know where Karen will be living. However, I require that it be in either Manhattan or Brooklyn. I will not have my children traveling on a dangerous ferry to and from Staten Island, or being called ‘Vinnie from the Block’ in the Bronx, or living in Queens, because I refuse to take the G from Brooklyn. Wherever she lives (preferably in Williamsburg or somewhere off the L in Manhattan—traveling is a real bitch, especially with two cat carriers), I hope that our new living situations allow for a sense of normalcy in the lives of our furry children re: kitty stripping and/or porn.
To be honest, I’m hoping I don’t have to refer to this guide any time in the near future. The four of us are currently a very happy family, and even though I am beyond open to meeting eligible dudes and/or giving my phone number to anyone who inquires via this blog, I wouldn’t trade my current living situation for the world. Or Ryan Gosling. Well maybe for Ryan Gosling. Yeah, I’d totally give up my family for Ryan Gosling.
