There have been a few times in my life when I’ve had the good fortune to live out a moment from one of my favourite sitcoms and dramedies.
Like that time I was working at my university newspaper and we were doing our best to get everything to press on time. We had called the printers and gotten an hour extension on our deadline, and a handful of us were scrolling through the PDFs trying to find any last-minute errors before sending it off one minute before 1 a.m. And as the excitement and anticipation subsided, I realized it was just like that episode of Gilmore Girls when Paris almost ruins the Yale Daily News by not having it ready for print and Rory steps up with Logan’s help to make sure Yale doesn’t miss a deadline for the first time.
Then there was that other time when I applied for a job at a city parks department. I sent in my resume and imagined a dozen situations that could come out of my foray into Parks and Recreation life, hoping I’d be more of a Donna character rather than a Jerry/Larry/Garry/Terry schlemiel/schlamazel. But I was never contacted – which was maybe for the best.
But recently, I woke up to one of the not-so-wonderful moments of sitcom life. It’s happened on a few different shows to a few different leading ladies. Lorelai Gilmore, Penny Hartz and Mindy Lahiri all experienced this rather tragic side of being a single heroine. I’m talking about the cat lady moment.
Lorelai woke up one day to find a cat staring at her on her front porch.
Penny bought her own condo that was quickly filled with dozens of stranger cats.
Mindy was sitting on her couch one day when she realized she was petting a cat that wasn’t hers.
I woke up the other morning to find that my Pinterest had followed – on its own – a board entitled, “Cat Ladies Unite.”
And suddenly I realized I was living the digital-age version of this rather unfortunate moment.
A teeny tiny panic attack was thankfully short-lived when my friend assured me it was purely coincidental and no reflection on me whatsoever.
The situation got even easier to handle when another friend suggested that maybe this was the inciting incident of my becoming a cat since I don’t really like felines.
So if I avoid pools in future and randomly jump into the laps of people who hate me, you’ll know why.
Just Comma, 