Dear Cary,

I don’t know when this will reach you, but I hope it’s before Saturday, September 3, 2007, as this letter bears a desperate plea and a dire warning.  The date that I mention begins as usual but ends with the birth of war, and I am counting on you to construct a diversionary tactic that will prevent a reaction of destruction and despair you will fight for 17 years and counting.

On this infamous day, at about 1 pm, you carry trash to the dumpster outside of your apartment.  It is there that you will first encounter a creature of seemingly innocent nature.  I beg of you; do not acknowledge it, do not speak to it, do not touch it, and most importantly, do not tell Spouse about it because his compassion towards this stray will change alter the course of your relationship. 

Though you protest, Spouse will provide this ungrateful thing a bowl of milk. As it drinks, Spouse will stroke its purring back and jokingly ask, “Can we keep him and call him Mr. Tiddles?”

You’ll roll your eyes (a gesture with which I am sure you are familiar) and explain, “You’re lucky I even let you feed it.” Because you have walls to vacuum, you’ll leave Spouse with his new friend, but not before telling him, “I do hope you wash your hands before touching anything inside.”

You won’t see Spouse again until much later because he is pulling more food out of the fridge to feed it and learning from a neighbor that the creature was left behind in an empty apartment with nothing but an open bag of cat food when its owners moved out a week before, and when the new tenant moved in, she (like you and me) had no desire for an indoor animal and set it loose outside.  But you won’t care because once you dispose of the bowl Spouse fed the cat from (one from which you typically eat your breakfast cereal) at the bottom of the trash can, you’ll think the subject closed.

You will be wrong.

If you do not deter Spouse from feeding this heathen, you will be pulled from sleep at 2:14 am by the curious sound of scratching at the bedroom window that sounds as if something is violently plucking on the wire mesh of the screened window, but don’t be afraid. But more importantly, don’t ease yourself out of bed, creep to the window, and yank the cord of the blinds as it will unveil the source of the ominous noise to Spouse’s delight.

When you let the cat inside, you will try to set your foot down, adamant that the cat will only stay indoors until the weather clears.

But when the rain passes, the cat will remain. But this isn’t just a cat. This is the first pebble in the landslide of your mental undoing.          

I hope it’s not too late because once it is inside, there is no going back.

Your future self,

Cary