Seventeen years ago (approximately) I agreed to apartment and cat sit for a graduate student (I'll call him George) who was a neighbor of my friend. I had only met him once, briefly, in passing, but I needed a new place for the summer and he needed someone to sublet his townhouse. There was one condition: I had to agree to take care of his four cats. I love animals, so no problem. Or so I thought...
I had an appointment set up with George to see the apartment, go over the cats' routine, etc. When I arrived, George showed me around and explained to me that the cats were hiding and that they probably wouldn't socialize with me much the entire summer because they were rather skiddish (that turned out to be an understatement of gigantic proportion). George seemed to be smuggly proud of the fact (or fantasy) that his cats would never socialize with me. Fine. I had a place to stay, and I didn't care if they wanted to be friends.
I moved in a week later, and just as George had instructed, I left the cats a plate of food and a fresh bowl of water each morning for breakfast, and I repeated the same in the evening when I arrived home from work. Each day, I would arrive home to the empty plate and bowl, never seeing the cats. Even though I filled their water bowl and put fresh food out that evening for their dinner, they never came downstairs until I went to bed upstairs. I would awake the next morning to find the empty plate and bowl, and I would re-fill for their breakfast, then leave for work. This routine continued for two weeks.
One evening I sat down in the living room and did some reading. After a bit I felt as though I was being watched. I glanced up from my book and I saw one small black cat head with scary green eyes staring at me as though he were trying to perform some sort of mine control trick. I didn't want to startle him because it was nice to actually meet one of my roommates. He stayed where he was then eventually ran back up the steps - probably to tell the rest of the troops that I didn't try to cook him or pull his tail and that I might actually be harmless.
Over the next several nights, the same cat, followed by another, then another, until eventually all four cats came to stare at me each night. They finally felt comfortable enough to eat their evening meal in the kitchen while I stayed in the living room, though they did take turns keeping watch.
About a month into my stay the central air unit had a problem and the upstairs bedroom was too hot for sleeping, so I decided to sleep downstairs on the pull-out sofa until the unit could be repaired. I woke up early that first night on the sofa and there, all four black cats with creepy green eyes, sitting in a circle around me and staring at me. None of them moving. Just staring.
I had to sleep on the pull-out sofa again the next night, and I tried to sleep with one eye open (that doesn't really ever work of course). I will admit that those four freakish cats had given me a true case of the willies. I woke up that morning with the strange circle of skinny black cats surrounding me yet again. This time, one of them actually started to purr. I felt safe now. For the two remaining months that I sublet the apartment, the cats sat with me (all four, always all four of them), ate while I was there, slept with me in the bed, and we were friends at last.
When it was time for George to move back in and for me to leave, the cats threw me a small party. We chatted and laughed about the frightening first couple of weeks when they were unsure of me, and I was unsure of them. We said our goodbyes and I promised that I would never forget them (and obviously I've kept my promise). I stopped by one evening after George was settled in to drop off his key. He thanked me for taking such good care of his cats, and made an uppity remark similar to, "I was right of course, I bet you didn't see any one of my cats while you stayed here. They are just so particular about who they decide to like." I simply said, "Yes, they are particular aren't they?" It was rhetorical, more of a statement than a question. I walked away, smiling of course, because those cats were particular, and it made me feel quite special to have been considered one of them.
--Fortuitous Observer
