Open an Instagram account and follow a bookstore that has a cat. This cat will have its own Instagram account. The booksellers will pose the cat next to books the cat is "reading." --Helen Ellis, author of American Housewife, in a Powell's Books blog post headlined "How to Be a Patron of an Independent Bookstore"
Maybe you didn't know this, but today is Answer Your Cat's Questions Day ("Take some time and attempt to work out what questions your cat is asking, and make a concerted effort to fill in the blanks.").
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| Maisie has an editing question. | |
Since we're in a business with a substantial feline workforce, it's appropriate that we enhance the celebration by offering a variation on the theme: Answer Your Bookstore Cat's Questions Day.
Some cats, of course, may have only one question: Why bother? The best answer is one I'd give to my own cats: Why not? While they aren't, strictly speaking, bookstore cats, mine are certainly book trade cats, helping out at the office in their own unique ways. And they always look like they have questions.
Writer Midge Raymond gets it. She recently chronicled her editing cat Oscar's attempts to assist while she's working: "He walks back and forth across the keys until I pick him up and cuddle him. He has an amazing ability to step on the keys in such a way that a computer function that I previously had no knowledge of is suddenly revealed to me. Perhaps his greatest contribution occurred as I was reading through the first-pass edits for my novel, which were in PDF. Not knowing that I could make notes on the PDF, I was writing on a pad of paper when Oscar, rushing to attack the pen, stepped on the keyboard in such a way that a PDF Post-it popped onto the screen, thus cutting my editing time in half." (Warning: cat editing results may vary.) What would Oscar's questions be?
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| Al at Village Lights Bookstore, Madison, Ind. | |
To help celebrate Answer Your Bookstore Cat's Questions Day, Mashable handily got the q&a ball rolling last week, advising us to keep our New Year's reading resolutions because "the bookstore-owning felines of Instagram--where the #bookstorecats hashtag has become popular of late--have not forgotten. Your decision to neglect another book club meeting has not gone unnoticed by these fuzzy-bellied, hyper-judgmental bookworms." Among their queries: "Been a while since you picked up a book, eh?" And: "I recharge for 72 hours between every novel for maximum reading comprehension. Don't you?"
In that spirit, I wondered what other questions bookstore cats might have, so I conducted an informal poll. Here are a few of their questions. I'll translate, but you have to provide the answers on a case-by-case basis. Your inquiring cats want to know.
Sales floor
Why aren't your books organized by flavor and texture?
Do the "what I can chew" rules have to be so damn complicated and contradictory?
Don't you find it intriguing that new books taste better, yet old books smell better?
Why do you let so many strangers in this place? And why can't your customers control their kids?
Why do you have so many cat titles classified as humor or counter books? It's insulting.
Social media
Is that another photo of me going up on your Facebook page?
Since you keep posting my pictures all over social media, do you think it's such a good idea to use my name as your password for everything?
Does it ever bother you that posts featuring me get dozens of likes, while all your other posts barely get a nibble?
Can't you come up with a synonym for "cute?" (Thesauruses are in the reference section, aisle 4.)
Aren't "cat selfies" over yet?
Office/service counter
Why are you always tapping your paws on that machine?
Why can't I catch a cursor?
How is it that giftwrap paper is totally off limits, unless you roll some up into a ball and decide it's a toy for me?
Why is that foamboard poster still at the end of the counter, blocking my sun?
Oh, were you reading this? (while standing on the pages of a book)
Personal
Why don't you read to me more often? I don't know what your words mean, but they sound nice.
Where do you go at night? Where does everybody go at night?
Who is the greatest writer about cats ever (and don't say T.S. Eliot)?
Why read when you can shred?
Where are you going now? Can I go to?
For some reason, many of the bookstore cats I contacted felt the need to quote Mark Twain: "If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but it would deteriorate the cat." Guess you'll just have to ask your cat for clarification on that one. --Robert Gray, contributing editor (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)