Sarah Kasbeer & Pimmy
Pimsleur T Kasbeer knows precisely what he wants. At night, it’s using my shins as a platform bed for his sleeping comfort. In the morning, it’s having his coat brushed with soft bristles for an unspecified amount of time that I’ll just have to guess at. In the afternoons, it’s evading his harness and leash, in hopes of finally catching that unwitting pigeon on the roof deck.
Pimmy doesn’t always get what he wants, but he will make a huge stink about it. Let’s say he catches me looking at my phone instead of fully focusing on operating his favorite wand toy (a faux pas). He’ll share his displeasure via a series of shrill meows, delivered in such proximity that the hot moisture from his breath tickles my ear.
If I don’t get out of bed fifteen minutes before his breakfast alarm (big mistake), I will experience the peculiar sensation of a single kitty claw tracing my scalp. Once I awaken to find that I am not having a nightmare about being serial-killed—but instead being toyed with by a mammal one-tenth of my size—he will have already collected a tendril of my hair, pulled it toward his mouth, and begun making slurping noises.
Since breakfast is his favorite meal (until lunch), as soon as I’m up, he’s already sprinting to the kitchen to supervise its preparation. In the case that the chow’s not up to snuff, he performs a dramatic double take, looking up at me, then to his sub-par heap of cat food, then back up at me, as if to say, ‘WTF dude?’
When I adopted this devilishly handsome boy from Brooklyn Animal Action last year, I was hoping he would want to cuddle. But Pimmy had his own agenda, and it didn’t involve being my lap cat. He followed me from room to room, requesting pets and sticking his butt in my face, but went out of his way to avoid extended physical contact.
He menaced my Zoom meetings in a bid for attention (his tiny face scowling in the background), but became squirrely when I tried to pick him up. If I dared attempt a snuggle in the wee hours, he would rearrange his position to retain his personal space without ceding any territory, which amounted to half my bed.
I kept the faith that my new kitty just needed time; all I had to do was renew his faith in humanity. Pimmy had been dumped when he was not quite a year old near a cat colony in Brooklyn. His rescuer (Central Brooklyn Cats) found him crouching next to a tree.
Although he’s obviously a long-hair mix—the tufts of fur on his paws cause him to slide across the hardwood floor during morning bursts of energy—his breed remains a mystery. Based on the triangular shape of his tiny muppet face and propensity to scale the windows while I’m trying to focus on work, my best guess is Norwegian Forest cat.
‘He’s lucky he’s cute’ is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot, especially when it comes to Pimmy’s vet bills. Investing in solid insurance coverage turned out to be a life-saver. My little fur pickle appears to have made it his life’s mission to burn right through the annual cap.
As it happens, we share the same afflictions—tummy troubles, generalized anxiety, and skin reactions—so I can empathize. Even though we’ve both been traumatized by me having to ‘burrito’ him in a blanket, smear the inner flaps of his ears with Prozac, then squirt liquid stool softener into his mouth, he has managed to warm up to me over time.
About six months into our relationship, he jumped onto the couch, plopped into my lap, and cuddled up to me like it was no big deal. I tried to play it cool, to pretend that my heart hadn’t just caught a major case of the zoomies. I didn’t want to scare him off.
Recently, he sidled up behind me in bed one night (instead of his usual spot on my shins) and pressed his floofy paws into my upper back. Happy to be his little spoon, I laid there, satisfied that my efforts were finally bearing fruit. In my mind, it was already official: He owned me.
Sarah Kasbeer is an author, essayist, and animal enthusiast. She’s currently writing a darkly comedic novel about a woman who ruins her life to save a zoo elephant.