But when one jumped into my path, I knew I had to help it — him. I knew I had to help him.
It all started on New Year’s Day. I was walking home from a late dinner with friends in Williamsburg, so the streets were empty except for us when a white furball launched himself at me from a side street, making me shriek.
Somehow, that did not scare him off. Instead, he started circling my legs and purring, and as he got closer, I realized he was incredibly clean, especially given his stark white coloring. This cat couldn’t be a stray. No, this friendly little fellow was someone’s cat and he got loose and I could get him home. And for some reason, in that moment, I knew I had to get him home.
So I scooped him up and started carrying him towards my apartment, but I didn’t even manage to get him home before I naming him. After a few blocks, he started wiggling and turned to water in my arms, like only cats can, and between that and his queso blanco coloring, I had no choice but to call him Fondue. The sheer fact that he had a name was worrisome to my roommates as I spilled into our apartment with him in my arms, but I think they could sense the state I was in and therefore agreed to let me keep him in my room—temporarily.
The second I set Fondue down, I started nesting. My pizza Tupperware set became his food and water bowls, and an Amazon box I’d meant to break down became his temporary litter box. While I went about this, he largely ignored me other than to occasionally brush by for a head scratch. That is until I opened a can of wet food. The way he bolted over and got in the way before I could even pour out the can confirmed it — this was a house cat and a spoiled one at that.
Once Fondue finished his tin and settled down again, I took some pictures of him. Because even as I was forming attachments to Fondue, I was formulating a plan to get him home. In the morning, I’d take him to a vet to see if he was chipped, and if not I’d post online and hang fliers around the area. I was confident I could give this cat a happy ending, even if I wasn’t going to have one.
My happy ending derailed two weeks prior when I broke things off with the boy I’d been dating on and off for nine years. And after the adrenaline of making a huge, life-altering decision faded, intense dread set in. Had I just made the biggest mistake of my life? Would I actually be any happier? How does sleep work again? Throughout the course of our relationship, no matter how stressed I was, I could curl up on his chest and hibernate for eight or so hours. Now, every time I got in bed it was a toss up — either sleep would come easily or I’d lie awake for hours contemplating not just this decision but every decision that led me to be a single 26-year-old copywriter living in New York.
I hope it isn’t this way for everyone, but 26 has been a very hard age for me. When I talk to people in their 30s and beyond, they seem to think I’m still so young and have my whole life ahead of me. And while I guess that’s true, I’ve been feeling pretty lost lately. I had no real plan for after New York. It was just a decision I made in college that felt right. And now, instead of listening to my gut like I used to back then, I’m struck with indecision and fear at the prospect of making a wrong decision. So as my friends from Florida settle down and do all the things you’re supposed to do, like buy houses and start families, I’m left feeling frozen and alone (And incredibly confused by all the emails I get from Bank of America regarding mortgages).
The only thing I’ve been certain about lately is that the relationship needed to end, and it took me months to get there. We were kids when we started dating, and after breaking down into hysterics every time I got too drunk for months, I finally accepted that we weren’t the people who first fell for each other back in Florida anymore. We’d changed too much to be together, and who we were now far outweighed the comfort and the love and the respect of our relationship. So while leaving was hard, staying was wearing me down more than I’d realized.
But losing my first love, even though I knew it was the right thing to do, left me feeling empty. And Fondue filled that void, at least temporarily. Instead of thinking about myself, I had a cat to take care of.
My only extended experience with cats pre-Fondue was when my family briefly adopted one before realizing both my father and I were allergic, so all of Fondue’s habits, specifically his nocturnal ones, were a complete mystery to me and therefore an excellent distraction. Every night I had Fondue, he would curl up next to me contentedly until around 1am when he would jump out of bed and alternate between (1) throwing around the contents of his litter box, (2) staring at me demonically from any and all elevated surfaces in my room, and (3) screaming like he was about to die.
So by the early morning, I’d get to a breaking point with him and would contemplate putting him back on the sidewalk where I’d initially found him. In fact, one night in a moment of either total clarity or lunacy, it’s hard to be sure, I locked a screaming Fondue in the bathroom around 6am so I could take a quick nap before work.
Even as I was doing it, I thought back to a week before when I’d curled up on our bath mat and cried so as to not bother my roommates. They’re pretty used to my emotions at this point, but this wave of missing my ex left me crying in the full-body, hysterical way that leaves your abs sore, and I didn’t want to wake or worry them.
Now my red eyes were from cat allergies that were slowly acting up as Fondue got more and more comfortable in my space. The vet confirmed that Fondue was snipped but not chipped, so I was left to wait for his parents to see my postings. And with each passing day, I was sleeping less and sneezing more.
Thankfully, the cat community is parallel to none and had responded to my posts with a number of leads. Was this Blanco from Bravo Supermarkets? No. Does he belong to someone in the co-op at 103 Havemeyer? Also no. But for each potential owner, I loaded Fondue into the cat carrier that the vet gave me and walked him around Williamsburg as he rolled around screaming and scaring passersby.
This is the most effective print piece I’ve ever worked on, and I expect a Gold Effie for my efforts
The madness finally ended one afternoon when a woman named Annette, texted me because the cat from the posters looked like Kenneth Cole, or Kenny as she calls him. She sent pictures that confirmed that Kenny and Fondue were in fact one in the same, and we made a plan to meet after work.
After handing him over, I felt immense relief — I could sleep through the night! But my joy over my newfound freedom was immediately replaced dread, knowing that I probably wouldn’t.
With the task of getting him home completed, I had to return to reassessing my relationship status (or lack thereof) in addition to countless other facets of my life that were making me restless. Even as I set about putting my room back in order and vacuuming up as many of the white hairs as I could find, I accepted that with or without Fondue, my eyes were going to be red for at least a couple more weeks.