I have one rich cat and one middle class cat.
More accurately, I have one raised-rich cat , and one raised-normal cat .
They’re both living the easy life now, but their respective paths to our home are as different as their temperament and size, as their coloring and density of hair.
I got Caylee from my cousin when she was 8.
She is, and always has been, an indoor cat. This is very clear by the way she does everything.
Smilez was rescued from a dumpster as a kitten, in the middle of a polar vortex.
Smilez moved in with Caylee and I, when me and my then-girlfriend, now-fiancee, moved into a cramped, 3-story, Loring Park walk-up together.
Caylee is a neurotic, incessant, olive oil fiend who never gains weight and runs around like a spoiled, drunk woman at Bloomingdale’s, pointing to the things she wants and yelling at them.
She’s high strung, anxious, and thin as a rail.
And while I certainly haven’t deterred her most bourgeoisie tendencies, with my completely-giving-her-whatever-she-wants, Caylee was always to remain, a classic born-rich.
Smilez, on the other hand, named after the white mustache that provides him an eternal, optimistic disposition, can spend all day sleeping in one spot, his comfy bowl, or following the sun around the house, window to window, paunch overwhelming sills, summer breeze blowing past his dense tuxedo fur.
Smilez loves our yard. He doesn’t see much reason to explore past its fences.
Caylee wants to run into the street every time I open the fucking door.
I go on walks with Caylee.
I let her bound out the door and down our back steps, through our white vinyl pickets, onto the sleepy sidewalk of our shaded street, under the old trees with their tall limbs stretched to the skies.
I say, “don’t go in the street” because I enjoy pretending my cats understand what I say, and when I catch up to her she follows me, more or less, staying on the sidewalk, more or less, as we walk, more or less, around the corner and back.
During these walks she runs after any squirrel, or menacing, wind-blown leaf, that flutters across her path.
And during her mid-walk hunting outbursts it becomes clear that she doesn’t understand what trees, or squirrels for that matter, are.
As soon as a squirrel sees Caylee, it runs to the nearest tree, and instinctively climbs up the opposite side of her.
This confuses and frustrates my born-rich cat. She has not learned from this. It is an effective trick.
It also doesn’t help that Caylee’s barely twice the size of a squirrel and has no front claws. Her plans for the squirrel, once caught, are unclear to say the least.
Smilez probably slaughtered vermin as an infant.
Caylee is Lady Edith from Downton Abby, our own Kim Kardashian, all grown up and really wanting a job.
Caylee knows jobs are a lot more fun when you can spend 40 human years figuring out exactly which one you want.
Smilez knows if you don’t need a job, don’t get a job.
Caylee constantly whines to go outside, or get another treat, or come back inside, or get another treat.
Smilez likes tomatoes.
I don’t know why. Humans don’t even like tomatoes.
But Smilez must have eaten some small tomato out of some random garden when he was 2 months old and he knows it tastes like the opposite of dumpsters.
Smilez never begs or jumps up on the table.
Caylee begs constantly. (See, again, my giving-her-whatever-she-wants-all-the-time-for-years)
Besides tomatoes, Smilez loves greek yogurt, and wet cat food. That’s it.
Smilez is the young guy who’s seen some shit. He’s older than his years. He drinks one kind of drink. That’s it, that’s his drink.
I heard somewhere that outdoor cats were more timid about trying new foods. Something about the lasting pain of failed risk.
That would certainly be true for Smilez.
But what his palette lacks in variety, his appetite makes up for in volume.
Smilez is a big chungus. He bulks, but never cuts, just like his dad.
Caylee tries to get into whatever we’re eating. Chips, cheese, milk, no vegetables.
She doesn’t gain weight, nothing. It’s infuriating.
Caylee is an upper-east side debutante, her go-to drink changing with the moment.
She drinks water from the sink y’all.
Do you know what level of entitlement drinking out of the sink is for cats? It’s Ivy League, prep school, old money entitlement.
And while Smilez is new money at best, we still make him feel like a part of the family (our cats think we’re super rich, and we definitely are, for cats) by donning upon him a bow tie.
A bowtie collar on a tuxedo cat. It took us way too long to figure that out.
Because Smilez is middle class, he thinks dog shows are fancy. We are happy to maintain the illusion.
Caylee reminds me of myself, with her anxiety, her self-doubt, and near-addict level love of oils.
Smilez reminds me of myself on the weekend, a sensualist, prone to extended bouts of dis-animation.
Caylee is my whiny, upper-middle class ambitions. She is my willingness to overpay for takeout.
Smilez is my contented middle class upbringing, grateful for the good life he has, who knows doing nothing, with the right people, is pretty hard to beat.
We just got a dog. She’s more afraid of the cats than they are of her. Just like her parents. She’ll fit right in.