The Attack Cats

continued

the first turn when I saw someone walking toward us, then a dog, then another.

“Hi,” I said. “I see you have dogs.”

No answer.

“I have two cats with me,” I said. That’s what I usually say, hoping the desired response—to cross the street with the dogs—will be obvious.

“Oh,” she said. “Are you the cat guy?”

I confessed that I was. Two of my cats and I go for a stroll around most of our fairly large block just about every night when the weather is good, and folks have noticed. A man we often see on our rounds even asked me once, walking his tiny, yippy dog, if I had to take my cats for a walk for the same reason he had to take his dog. Uh, no. Another time, two kids passed us on bikes, and I heard one say to the other, “There’s that man who goes for walks with his cats.”

Anyway, I asked the dog walker whether she and the dogs would mind crossing the street, if it wasn’t too much trouble. She didn’t answer but acquiesced.