Ewa Szypula wants a cat. She gets more than she’d bargained for.
Wandering around Paris one day, and looking for a sunny terrace to sit on, my friend and I stumbled upon a big café sign featuring a cat. We had found our way to one of Paris’s several ‘cat cafés’.
Inside, customers sip their coffees and enjoy what look like good-sized, tasty lunches. All the while, cats are casually wandering around – either hanging out with the customers and accepting the odd cuddle, or having naps on random items of furniture. As we enter, a cat is stretched out the whole length of the bar, snoozing, just hanging out.
You go in, and a waitress outlines the rules: you must not disturb any cats that are sleeping; you must not feed the cats anything; the cats are there to do their own thing, and you must not force them to do anything, like for example pick them up and try to make them hang out with you; but if a cat wanders over to you, you are free to stroke, cuddle, and generally make friends.
We settle at a table by the window. Pretty soon, a cream-coloured kitty wanders over to say hello. It put me in mind of one of those hostesses in the seedy bars of the red-light-district; one of those things where women sidle up to unsuspecting English customers (‘Ello, darling. You want company?’), trying to get them to buy them a few drinks, adding to an already extortionate bill. This kitty wandered over like he owned the place. He hung around for a bit of cuddling, and had a good sniff inside my shopping bags (which, bizarrely, contained a melon). He had a chunk of fur missing from behind the ear.
I hadn’t realised that most of the furry residents of the Café des Chats are in fact rescue cats, and most of them have come to the Cat Café from less-than-nice previous homes. The café is the feline world equivalent of one of those very expensive R&R places, like, I don’t know, a sanatorium for survivors of trauma, or like a classy rehab facility, with spa and private grounds, and beach views. For cats.
I smiled at my friend, both of us totally warming to the place. I smiled at the cat. And then – unbelievably – almost as an afterthought, as he turned to go, the kitty took a swipe at me. I kid you not. I didn’t even do anything. I didn’t have a chance to react. I just sat there, sort of stunned, shielding myself from a further attack from the cat, who, mercifully, wandered away. (It’s the seedy bar thing all over again: you’ve had you fun, now you pay for it…) My friend and I sort of looked at our cappuccinos, and just sort of decided to act like I hadn’t just been viciously attacked.
(Maybe what with the whole lovely ‘cat rehab’ ethos of the place, it wouldn’t be the done thing to start complaining that I had been savaged by the cat…Would the waitress roll her eyes and say ‘Middle-class problems’? Would anyone believe me, or would they just go ‘Well, you must have done something to provoke him…’?)
Anyway, the UK is now joining in the cat café craze. A quick browse on the internet showed me that London now boasts a place called ‘Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium’ (‘London’s first ever cat café!’), and Nottingham has recently opened ‘Kitty Café’, which offers the following tantalizing blurb on its website: ‘As Kitty Café is a cat rehoming centre, should you meet a cat or kitten that you feel a particular connection to please do enquire about our adoption process’.
(I’m good, thanks, but you guys go for it.)
