Bad mommy

"Your first baby!"

Those are the words three separate individuals said to me when I told them Henry and I had acquired a kitten. At this point I'm so accustomed to certain people in my life desperately seeking any signal that we're going to sack up and formalize our relationship that I didn't waste any energy responding. I just said "Okay." "Okay" is how I am starting to feel about all of it. You think it's weird that we've been together almost five years and we're not married? Okay. You think it's weird that I don't care? Okay. You think getting a kitten is in any way comparable to having an actual human baby? Okay. "Show me a human baby that can walk itself over to a box full of gravel and poop in it" is probably how I should've responded, but I'm sick of listening to myself sass people.

That being said, having a young animal around the house has proven to be more like having a child than I ever could've imagined. Call it a micro-baby: although the responsibility is not all that huge, there's still plenty that's parent-y about the situation in which we currently find ourselves. Especially the guilt. I don't know why I should feel guilty about anything short of physically abusing our kitten, considering she was born in an alley and now lives in a two-bedroom apartment full of soft places to sleep where she is fed four times a day and loved constantly in spite of the fact that her idea of a good time is using the flesh of my legs as a scratching post, but I do. Sometimes at night when she meows outside our bedroom door for a half-hour straight, I want to shout, "You think you have problems? There are starving kittens in Africa!"

When I was a really little kid, my dad used to do this thing where he'd hold both my hands and then swing me around in a circle so my feet lifted off the ground. This one time he lost his grip on one hand mid-swing, and next thing you know he and my mom were in the ER with a doctor suspiciously asking how he could've "accidentally" yanked my arm out of the socket. I can't imagine how my dad must've felt, but I think I got a small hint when I stepped on Rocky's back paw the other day and she made the worst noise I have ever heard in my life, then limped away from me as fast as she could while still looking totally heartbreaking. Ten minutes later, she was perfectly fine; I, on the other hand, was a total basket case, practically comatose from guilt. And much as I hate to admit it, the thought that was running through my head was, "How will I ever take care of a REAL baby?" It's probably unlikely that I will ever step on a baby, I know this, but I could drop it or set it on fire or something.

But wait! Aren't I like ten or twenty steps ahead here? That's how I tried to reassure myself. "You're nowhere near having a real human baby, dipshit!" I scolded me. "You're not going to do that for, like, twenty years!" Then I realized those are the very words I used to say to myself as an incompetent thirteen-year-old babysitter. FIFTEEN YEARS AGO.

You know, we spend the easiest years of our lives in school, learning how to add and subtract and what the capital of Uzbekistan is, and then when the hard parts come along we're totally on our own. Sometimes I can't believe I spent a year in grad school translating Amelie Nothomb and consuming large quantities of whiskey when I should've been learning how to send a fax. Why aren't there classes for grown-ups? Here are some ideas for courses I'd sure love to take:

• Work E-mail 101
• Cleaning the Adult Apartment: Beyond Windex
• They're Not Your In-Laws Yet: Coping With Your Boyfriend's Parents' Political Views
• What Exactly Is Escrow?
• Business Casual for Dummies
• Don't Eat Ever: A Guide to Your Changing Metabolism
• Hand Towels and You
• You Can Do Your Own Taxes But You Can't Hold a Baby Properly: Sound Familiar?