The Price of Free

The cat and I meet this woman at a bar.  It’s like this.

Scrolling online, I found myself attracted to this particular profile of a woman with a purported soft spot for pets.  Dorah was her name.  Still is.  Dorah seemed perfect.  Online.  The language she used.  Her cast of free emojis.  And she was eager to meet.  There’s nothing like one’s interest in you to encourage your interest in them.

So, Thursday night, she sent me a text saying  governor [frowny face] going to shut down bars again.  [wineglass] [martiniglass] [beerstein]  This might be last weekend to meet over drinks.  Wanna?  [teddybear] [runningman] [calendar] 

I don’t drink.  But I like drinking emojis.  So I texted her back a line of [cute paper umbrella]’s and an old-school yes.

Sitting with Toby in my car outside the bar, I look out at the wild world.  The numbers of people affected by the virus are rising.  The number of those people dying from the virus are rising.  And there is not a mask to be seen.  Against my better judgement, I tuck my mask under my shirt and step out of the car.

She saved us a table.    

“What an adorable cat,” Dorah says while I pull up a third chair for myself.  It’s a nice place.  Lots of tables, almost six-feet apart.  Patrons are encouraged to bring their pets.  Even the bartenders have secondhand fur on their black shirts. 

Two sips into her first high-priced drink, Dorah says, “I used to have a cat.”

Toby and I look at each other. 

“So, you don’t have a cat anymore?”

“I adopted Angelpoo from this free clinic.”  She rolls her eyes, looking back.  “You know it’s true, you get what you pay for.”

This border collie at the next table looks at my date and he looks at me.  I pretend not to notice. 

I listen to Dorah’s plans to procure an expensive Siamese/Egyptian cat hybrid that looks great without shedding on Dorah’s nice cloths.  She will call the expensive cat Angelpoo-Two.  I put one hand to the side of my face to block out the border collie’s glare and I slide my glass to the cat.

“How long have you had Toby?” she asks me.

“Ten years?”  I look to my left and Toby nods.  “He kind of just showed up.  When I opened the door, he invited himself in and asked where I keep the litter box.  There was no exchange of funds.  No receipt.  So forget any refund policy.”  I laugh.  The blue ox—specifically, the blue ox at the table with the burly guy in flannel—snorts.  I glance at the border collie.  He makes a happy face and pants.

“Huh.”  That is all Dorah is willing to give me.

“So…”  I look at the ox and the border collie.  I look around the bar and note one hen, two alpacas and one attendee in a fish bowl.  “So.  It sounds like you really like the name Angelpoo.” 

My date makes her head go side-to-side like a real-life thinking emoji.   “It’s not so much the name.  I just don’t believe in giving up on a relationship.  If it takes me four or five Angelpoo’s to make it work, I’m committed to it.”

Toby and I exchange looks again.  He carefully pulls my glass to him.

“Relationships take a lot of work,” I grant her.  “Good ones, at least.  I’m sure there are some budget relationships, you know, the kind that is not exactly smiley-emoji great but doesn’t cost a lot to maintain.  Like a neighbor’s koi that swims over to pay a visit when the waters rise.”

Dorah rolls her eyes.  “I need another drink.”

After three drinks, Dorah and Toby are pretty loosened up.  And that is when the evening starts to unwind like a tragic ball of yarn.  The woman with a soft place in her heart for the name Anglepoo forgets which one of us she is not on a date with and raises her hand to pet the cat. 

I tell her, “I wouldn’t do that.”

Next thing I know Dorah is shrieking like a [combustible frowny face] and folding a napkin around her finger.  I ask if there is anything I can do. 

“You and your….”  Her mind races to find and unpack the right emoji.  “FREE CAT.”  She seethes, and droplets of scorn hover over the table.  In one deft move, I pull two masks from the neck of my shirt and put one over my mouth and one over Toby’s.  “You and your little masks.  I should have known.  And what is that supposed to mean?” 

She should have known the thing she doesn’t know.  I’ll be thinking about that conundrum for a while.   

My free date’s outrage rises like the Covid charts.  She throws back her drink and stands.  “Everything was going so nice.  Call me when you meet Toby-Two.” 

Dorah [runningman]’s out of the bar.

There is slow-chugging laughter in the room.  It builds.  Snorting and panting and bleating.  Toby and I look around at the single people and their pets.   Some of them have a third glass at an empty seat.  Some of them pull out a mask. 

A woman stops at my table on the way out.  She is wearing a sizable see-through tunnel around her neck with a gerbil inside taking laps.  As she leans to write her name and number on a napkin, the gerbil slides back in its tube.  “Call me, maybe.” 

One of the cute barkeeps, followed by her three lemmings, comes by and asks if we need a refill.  She hands me a card with her name and email address.  Each of the lemmings hands me a card.

At this point, Toby-One can’t walk a straight line to save his nine lives.  I carry him to the car and he passes out on the front seat.  I know there will be a price to pay when we get home and all those drinks come out of him the same way they went in.  But that’s a relationship.  A friendship.  Free from the get-go.  Requiring more work than a forty-hour-per-week job.  And yielding more dividends that you can hold in a litter box.

Toby-One and Greenfish-Twenty-Three share a drink.