Crazy Cat Lady

Those fucking words.

Those reductive, mean, idiotic words.

I have four cats. To my mind, four cats is a reasonable number of pets in the grand scheme of things. People have four kids pretty regularly, and kids are a helluva lot crazier to invest time in than cats. People also have multiple dogs who all bark at you the second you walk in the door, but no one calls someone with four pekinese a crazy dog man. Of those three creatures you can choose to populate your home with, cats are the quietest, cleanest, lowest maintenance of the bunch. So, before I would start casually tossing off words like "crazy," you'd have to be in the double digits of cats. And also be crazy.

Crazy is just not a word to be thrown around lightly.

I mean, you can say, "Hey, last night was crayyyyzeeee!" and that's fine. But you don't call a person crazy. Not casually, and certainly not the second they cordially let you into their home.

"Holy shit! That's a lot of cats! You're a crazy cat lady, yuk yuk yuk!!!"

Well, at least I'm not an asshole. Like you.

Seriously, this phrase has been so thoroughly accepted in our culture, it's seen as perfectly fine to make that statement the second you're being let into someone's home. Into my home. Where the floors are free of cat hair, where the litter box is cleaned regularly, where my cats are always loving, loved, and well-behaved. Where there is not a whiff of crazy. The home, need I remind you yet again, where I have just invited you over for coffee, or drinks, or a full fucking homemade meal.

And yet, about 70% of the time I let someone new into my home, despite the fact that they know I have cats, they feel the need to make very offensive note of that fact by calling me a crazy cat lady.

In the words of the great Michelle Tanner, "How rude!"

Just. Don't. It's not okay.