"See, honey, this could have been you."

As I said previously, there aren't many points of tension in my relationship with Ms. K save for my two white cats, which she affectionately calls "the little bastards." Since she has been spending more time at my apartment, we have had many a conversation about them and the kudzu like spread of cat hair. I'll admit that with two cats it gets everywhere despite the fact that I clean and vacuum regularly, but I'm trying -- really trying -- to alleviate their impact on our environment for the sake of her allergies.

"BTW, your ad didn't say that you had two cats," Ms. K said recently, feigning annoyance with me.

"I didn't have them at the time," I shot back testily. (I have become very defensive when the subject of my cats comes up.) "If I had, would you have run the other way?"

"No, you're too pretty to be a crazy cat lady," she said with a mollifying smile.

So last night as we laid in bed, Ms. K flipped through her recent purchase of Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!) and read me some of the funnier passages. When we got to the section referencing a senile old spinster and her collection of cats, she pointed to the picture of the woman and said, "See, honey, this could have been you."

I gave her one of my looks -- scrunched lips and a furrowed brow, We are not amused -- the same look she loves to provoke because she finds it so funny. She continued to read aloud anyway, taunting me with the sad and lonely schedule of this woman's afternoon.

"2:00: A visit from the postman! The fall issue of Cat Fancy is here!

"2:15-7:00: Fancied my cats in accordance with the latest cat-fancying trends."

Ms. K laughed harder than before and teased, "Aren't you glad you have me? You could have been this woman. Is Cat Fancy a real magazine??"

"Yeah, it's a magazine devoted to cats," I replied, perhaps a little too quickly.

"Wait . . . have you ever subscribed to Cat Fancy Magazine??"

I hesitated to answer, taking a sharp intake of breath. When her eyes began to grow wide with disbelief, I raised a finger to stop the onslaught of eminent teasing. "I have never subscribed to Cat Fancy Magazine. However when I was sixth grade, I would read it in my middle school library. I also didn't have any friends, so there was no social standing left to damage."

Oh how she laughed and laughed, threatening to get me a subscription to Cat Fancy as a funny little joke. I don't know why I give her so much ammo against me. She still hasn't let the TP Incident slide.