Cops and Cats

This morning on my walk to work I noticed a little bit of hubbub on the south side of Union Square, so nosey parker that I am, I headed over to check out what the haps was about. There was a huddle of NYPD cops about, and while I couldn't detect any criminal-looking characters, the cops themselves suddenly lent an air of danger and electricity to the atmosphere. These weren't like the British cops, who wield batons and seem kindly and fatherly. These were the Manhattan kind, with Lockheed Martin artillery and scowling visages.

I glanced around to try and detect any apparent reason for their presence, but there was no handcuffed lad in sight, or a mob shootout. Instead, right by the cops was a cage, with 5-6 tiny kittens in it. I was instantly entranced, and drawn towards the scene.

"I guess you guys caught the Manhattan Cat Robber, huh," I joked to one of the cops. Why do I think I am funny? I should just remember, my jokes usually tend to fall flat.

A blank look. Awkwardness.

"Erm, so you don't suppose I could go up close to see, do you?" He shrugged nonchalantly. So I guess the cats weren't critical evidence in a murder case then. As soon as I squatted by the cage, all the kittens came running towards me, tumbling over each other in their excitement. They'd just been hungry for human contact, I guess. Hungry for any contact at all, judging from the age of some of them, who must have been just days old.

I stuck my finger in the cage to touch the littlest one, which had barely just opened its eyes for the first time. Instantly it put and held its mouth around the tip of my finger with an instinctive sense of creature comfort. I thought it was amazingly cute for a moment, until I realised the kitten probably thought it was breast feeding, and that grossed me out somewhat, I pulled my finger out in a shot.

I wondered where in the world the cats had come from, but I was hardly about to ask the cop again, before he'd had his morning doughnut. Just then another of the cops approached me.

"You want one of them?" he asked me.

"I wish I could, but I can't," I said wistfully.

He nodded. "Their mum just had a litter," he explained, nodding towards the kittens. "We can't keep them all, so I'm off to drop these kids off at the shelter."

I must have looked puzzled about what they were doing at Union Square, so he proceeded to explain. "Can't go till this evening though, so for the moment, they're having a day with the boys."

I liked that. Pretty funny, the kittens having to spend a day out with the cops on duty. And judging from the looks of them, they seemed to be quite enjoying the adventure.

As I continued on to work, I wondered how excited they would be if they'd had to spend the day with an HR bod. Writing idiosyncratic emails.