how i got my agent
but it's actually about my cat
on the morning of october 5, 2023, i walked my husband downstairs at about 7:30 in the morning. he was going to work; i was moving our car for street cleaning. in the stairwell of our apartment building, we met a cat. a skinny, soft gray-brown tabby cat who was very friendly. so friendly that he tried to come with us. thinking he’d gotten out of another apartment by accident, and not knowing what to do about that, we left him in the stairwell. i came back inside through another door.
two hours later, my younger son went out for ramen, and after a little while he texted me:
over the course of the day, we checked on stair cat several times. he tried following us to our apartment, and i put out a bowl of water for him.
then, around 2:00 in the afternoon, my older son was in the hallway and saw someone pick up the cat and walk away with him. younger son was distraught by this news, and checked several times over the next hour or two to see if he was back in the stairwell. and then…
(we all thought the cat was female at this point, but since we subsequently learned that he is not, i’m using his correct pronoun throughout.)
younger son was devastated. husband was devastated. i was devastated. (older son, who did not want a cat, was relieved.)
then i had an idea. we texted the building manager and offered to take responsibility for getting the cat checked for a microchip, if no one responded to the signs. he was effusively grateful and asked if we could pick the cat up now, since he has dogs. younger son and i collected him and set him up in the bathroom, and husband brought home litter and food. at this point it was about dinner time, and we assumed that his owners would come home and claim him.
spoiler: no one claimed him.
the next day i went to the store and got better supplies for him, and took him to a vet to be checked for a chip. he doesn’t have one. signs were posted inside and out for about two weeks, and no one called. we named him sweet baby ray’s barbecue sauce and we love him more than anything. even older son is fully on board now.
and that’s how i got my cat.
wait, what was the question? ohhh, gotcha. yeah, that was hard work, perseverance, and ✨luck✨. but perhaps it is worth noting that i queried kate, who is now my agent, the day before ray inserted himself into our lives. (does it mean anything? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ maybe! but i really don’t find the “how i got my agent” genre of blog post/email/article to be remotely helpful.)