While the Cat is Away

. . . the mouse will sort of sit around, feeling bored and kinda lonely.

So Chiara took a jetplane to Italy on Sunday, and she left me and the cat (the actual cat) to hold down the fort. The cat might disagree, but I think it’s going all right so far; I almost always remember to feed her.

I mean, sure, the place is getting a little frayed around the edges, but nothing catastrophic. It is like the end of the Roman empire: it just gets more decadent and unkempt, and the dustbunnies make some inroads into the interior (in this metaphor, they’re the Visigoths), and eventually Chiara comes home and clucks and tsks a bit and we clean house and presto, Renaissance!

Thing is, when your wife goes out of town for a month or so, you spin these gossamer webs in your mind’s eye about what it’ll be like. You imagine that now, at last, you’ll have that poker game, or smoke those cigars, or watch those pornographic movies, or go to those bars with your bachelor friends. You think that you’ll play music as loud as you want because no one will be in the other room trying to watch the Biggest Loser. You think you’ll go out every night and the cat thinks she’ll be allowed to sleep in the bed.

Of course, the reality is somewhat more tame. Mostly you just wish you had something to do. You feel sort of depressed and suddenly feel sure that, were your wife around, you’d be having sex. And you feel sure it would be way crazier than any sex you actually have with her. The bed is noticeably colder and the house noticeably quieter.

I guess you play the music (mostly so you don't feel so alone) and you get to dance like an idiot, but that’s more fun when someone is there to roll her eyes at you.

And you don’t really like cigars or strip clubs or whatever anyway.

And the cat? Hell, she’s batshit crazy. Who knows what she thinks about cigars or stripclubs? And if I let her in the bed, Chiara will probably knife me.

So, unless someone gets me out of the house, This’ll be more or less just a great opportunity to catch up on some reading. I’m looking at you, Grapes of Wrath.

Well, and the porn. That part is just like you imagine it will be, more or less.