The Hopeless Romantic's Guide to Loveless Life

It has occurred to me on numerous occasions, not just this morning, that I am destined—quite literally—to be a cat lady. Perhaps it's humorous to some people to image women of my kind as we age into elderly hermits who don't even so much as see clear daylight in dilapidated homes on the outskirts of town with a film of dust over every window, a sense of death in each room, suffocating from the odor of feline feces, expired food from the burned out refrigerator and moth balls. A delivery boy brings groceries that will go uneaten—unless the cat food runs out—and also pounds of kitty litter. But, of course, as an elderly woman drowning in cats, cat toys, cat towers, and cat hair, I barely remember to brush my gums, let alone change the kitty litter. This is, conveniently, where crazy plays into the cat lady phenomenon. So accustomed to the scents of cats and years of cat meowing muffling the feline specials on daytime television, I have miraculously learned to speak to cats. I eat, sleep, and breathe cats. Or, rather, they eat me. After I die and no one finds my corpse in time… That is to be my future: cats (not the musical).

Apparently the fates just want cats to be my life because, as hard as it is for anyone to believe, I have—at the moment—twelve. My apartment smells like Febreeze, so much so that it's pretty obvious I'm trying to mask the smell of something. Unless you want your home to reek of six litter boxes—which, mind you, is no where near enough—you too would have two wall plug-ins in every room, hide dryer sheets in drawers, and go through two bottles of fabric refresher and air sanitizer a month.

Why do I have so many cats? I love cats, everyone should love cats, but even I don't love cats so much that I willingly took on twelve. I don't introduce myself to people and then abruptly announce that I love cats. Therefore the better question is: why do cats love me?

The way I see it, my situation is the result of cats sensing some sort of pheromone that we humans don't even know exists yet. I like to think of it as a cat-lover gene or something. This is really only because, for some reason, I acquired eleven cats in the span of three weeks. I've had Yaco for years, since high school, and now all of a sudden it's like he multiplied. But he can't procreate because I had his—well, you know.

So eleven cats in three weeks. It was nothing like Noah's arc, I promise. There was no great storm and my apartment is not a seafaring vessel. In fact, I'd probably be the first to drown because I can't swim, am terrified of water, and live on the first floor of my building—not by choice, mind you, but that will come later.

The first cat came in the middle of the sticky summer afternoon while the obnoxious cicadas snored loud enough to keep everyone else awake and prevent napping (the bastards). On account of it being the birthday of one of my bosses' husband's brother, I got to have a break in the middle of the day from arranging bouquets of flowers for desperate, creepy men with no creativity or appreciation of women's rights.

Relishing the fact that my fingers would be spared for a few hours from pain and disfiguration, I sedately watched reruns of Law & Order: SVU and shoved my face with reduced fat Wheat Thins smothered in Nutella. Yaco, as usual, found in necessary to snuggle against me and require the incessant guarding of food from his hair, but let's face it, I more than likely ate some…

And then, all of a sudden, he jumped up for no reason, knocked my Nutella on the floor—making a disgusting mess—and leapt onto the windowsill. Shocked, I couldn't move. Half-chewed crackers and chocolate spread formed visible mush in my dangled open mouth and I just glared at my fluffy, mostly white cat. That's how, when I stormed over to shove him off his perch, I discovered the lanky black and white cat out in the bushes with her two itty bitty, nasty, blind, awkward newborn kittens.

I made posters, don't worry. I tried the newspapers, online, everywhere, but no one had lost a black and white cat. So they stayed, the mommy and her precious babies, in a box in my already crowded bedroom.

It was about ten days later that, while I was walking home from my overnight shift at the grocery store, I noticed the most beastly cat I had ever seen. On its side, looking dead beside the sidewalk, the pile of dust bunnies was unmoving. I thought for sure it was dead, but as I inched closer I noticed its face twitching. There was no visible collar, so I started to walk away. Sure I felt guilty for leaving it stranded there, but it could have had rabies or been vicious. I sure as hell was not about to touch a rabid, angry cat. Never pet strange animals, my mother taught me so.

Mew.

Baby voice kitty nearly shattered my heart. I peeked over my shoulder and saw it waddling after me, so fat it couldn't even walk normally. I gave up looking into the sad blue eyes and scooped it—her up. She was a feline fatal with the prettiest eyes and even gray tone that any cat would kill for. But she was fat as hell. I knew she was probably preggo for various reasons, but never did I think that a week and a half later she would have eight kittens the size of baby mice. That was the craziest shit I have ever seen.

Two months later I'm up eleven cats, out an area carpet thanks to Yaco, down a few hundred brain cells from fumes, still single, and starving because I can't afford to feed myself and the cats. What did I tell you? Crazy cat lady.

"Hello?" a voice calls. Startled, I jump in my seat and then smack my forehead against the edge of the kitchen table. In my pleasant reverie I seem to have forgotten the fact that my chair is so far away from the table that I have to bend over to touch it and, even then, only bits of me are able to rest on it. Such as my forehead.

"Hello?" the voice repeats, tip-toing through the living room into the kitchen where I am pathetically rubbing my face as if friction will magically reduce the pain and headache. "Ronnie! There you are."

I swivel around, both hands covering all but my eyes, and spot Camelia, my best friend, standing smartly under the archway in her pencil skirt and neat white blouse. A pair of black stilettoes and a dash of pale pink around her waist as a belt make the perfect atmosphere for a dazzling diamond to literally glitter on her left ring finger. Her straight auburn hair in pulled back into a messy bun so that her smile is fully visible.

"You got it?" I ask, reluctantly removing my hands from my face. She nods ecstatically and clacks her heels with a dance. Her glee alleviates a part of my physical agony, but just causes it to reappear in the emotional department.

"I'm so excited!" she shrieks, shaking her head in celebration. "Now Ben and I can buy a house!"

I smile for her, genuinely happy—and even proud—that she's doing something with her life. Cam studied early childhood development in college and got her masters in elementary education. She loves kids and this job is perfect for her. It isn't an easy task to waltz into Kensington Academy at all, let alone for a job interview. The people there are so haughty and stuck up that it gives me nightmares, but Camelia was determined to work there. And she fits in.

Now is when I ramble to the full extent of my knowledge of Camelia Maxine Webster, shockingly unrelated to Noah Webster—the dictionary guy. Her birthday is May twelfth, she's twenty-four, engaged to Benjamin Tennant, her older brother's name is Nolan Orpheus, and she is an heiress to…something or another. Cam is British, but you would never be able to tell. She ditched the accent as soon as she could—or so she told me—how I never asked, knowing full well that she attended boarding school in Switzerland and abandoning an accent on a campus full of accents had to be impossible… She came to America for her college education, insisting that Europe was suffocating her.

Her fiancé, Ben, is in taking his residency as an anesthesiologist. He's great. I don't think that her father could have parted with her for anyone less. Benjamin Tennant is the most thoughtful man I have ever met, and he's cute, too. Not to mention the fact that he never paid a single dime for his education because of scholarships. Not that he needed them since his father is the founder and head of one of the most powerful law firms in the entire country. His older brother has followed in those footsteps, however, while Benny boy took his own path.

"We just can't have any kids for at least three years," she sighs.

With a furrowed brow I ask, "Why?"

"Because," she explains, sitting down at the table. "I can't just up and leave as soon as I arrive. I'd be ruined and never hired at another school ever again."

I frown at her deflated posture. Camelia loves kids, not being able to have any will ruin her.

"Why do you need to work at that stuffy place anyway?" I ask, scooting my chair closer to the table so that I can rest my elbows.

"Because," she says again, as if that one word is the answer to everything. I mean, it kind of is, but that's not the point.

"Can't you just strategically plan a pregnancy for the summer months?" I muse.

"No," she gasps, horrified by the suggestion. "That takes all of the fun and excitement and surprise out of it!"

"Cam, we don't need any more surprise pregnancies in our lives," I deadpan.

My luck with baking buns in metaphorical ovens has obviously not gone so well. Kittens are cute and all, but let's get real. And then there's the matter of our dear friend Liz, who is—as we speak—with child. An unexpected and disastrous event.

"You just don't understand," she concludes. I have to agree. I hate kids. Even anticipated pregnancies are horrifying to me.

Well, that's not entirely true. I don't hate kids; I just don't know how to act toward them. It just turns into a really awkward staring contest—which I lose—because I can't even communicate with adults, let alone children. I like animals, though, as noted by my twelve cats.

Then again, an appreciation for nature was pretty much forced upon me. Especially when you consider that my name is Ronan, which means seal. And I have a brother named Kodiak. Kodiak, Mavis, Grayling, and Ronan, sons and daughters of Robin and Linette Sexton. Nature, all of it.

"One day you'll understand," she tells me, a hint of a smile glittering in her eyes.

All I can say is that I beg to differ, being the cat lady and all. The only spawn I will have are the baby cats who were given the opportunity to live simply because their parents survived off of my dead corpse. Having kids would entail a husband—at the very least a male acquaintance—which I will likely never have. I love romance, don't get me wrong, but that shit doesn't really happen. Especially not to girls like me. We're the ones who grow up to be crazy cat ladies, it's our destiny.



So...I started over. Hopefully this works out better for all of us. Sorry if you're disappointed or something, but the other way I was writing was leading me NOWHERE. I've reworked the plot and I think---if I find the time to write---this will better suit us all.