That being said. I crossed some kind of line over the weekend, and I can't un-cross it. Visualize this:
I was sitting at my kitchen table with a beer and my lap top - doing... what? Looking stuff up on YouTube, maybe. A cold, dismal rain was falling. And I heard the sad meowling** of an unhappy cat outside on the porch.
I opened the door and stepped outside, to find Roof Cat*** sitting on the railing looking damp and dejected. Wanting to make him feel better, I slipped back inside to get him a treat. Having a name for the stray cat that hangs out on my roof and feeding him from time to time may already make me a crazy cat lady in the eyes of some, I am aware****. The usual handful of kibble was clearly not a good idea, given the weather. My only other option was a can of tuna. I may also have retrieved a bathmat from inside and set up a sweet little dining area under the overhang, where he could enjoy his meal without being rained on, resting on the warm and dry bathmat rather than the saturated wooden planks of my porch. His tail rose a little, hopefully, when he caught the scent of tuna in the night air. I tried to coax him down, but he paced back and forth along the railing, meowling again, occasionally looking like he was getting ready to jump, backing out*****, and pacing again. It didn't take me long to realize that he didn't want to have to slosh through a frigid puddle to reach the oasis I'd thoughtfully created. And here is where I crossed the line. Consider this:
Except... substitute the lady with a stray cat, the man with a lady, and the jacket with a T-shirt, which I stripped off and arranged on my anti-gravity chair so he could have a soft jumping off point, still warm from my body heat. I may have stayed outside T-shirt-less so I could soothingly convince him that it was okay to come down. And I maybe smoked a cigarette. By the time I was done I'd gotten a little nipply and Roof Cat was still on the ledge, so I retreated inside where it was warm and I had beer.
I peeked outside a few minutes later to find Roofie happily eating the tuna, and all was right with the world. I don't know if my T-shirt was any help at all... but... I had to do laundry anyway. And it's not like I've never been topless on my porch before. I used to go out topless on my porch all the time. That was before I got glasses and had not yet realized that my neighbours to the back could, in fact, see me quite clearly if they happened to look my way******.
*A couple of cats at a time. It breaks my cat-loving bleeding heart a little bit every time I stop in the Humane Society to visit the cats and see a cage labelled: Clyde. Age 15. At the Humane Society since January 2010. (Did I just suggest that I stop in at the Humane Society now and then just to visit the cats? No I don't. That's crazy).
**meowling. can it be that I just made that word up? Google suggests that I did. Mewling, yes. Meowling, no. I insist that meowling is a whole different sound, as anyone who's overheard a cat in the rain can confirm.
***If I have described Roof Cat before, stop reading. If I haven't, Roof Cat is a possibly stray orange and white calico cat that hangs out on my roof all the time. I say "possibly" stray because on one hand, he seems pretty well-fed, but on the other hand, I catch him out there at all hours of day and night.
****I started out to say, "Fuck you", but it seems a little harsh. So instead, "Don't Judge Me".
*****Like someone bracing themselves before jumping into a lake in early June. In Canada.
******Why lie? I still go out topless on my porch all the time. There're no secrets between me and my backyard neighbours at this point.
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