iv.

While in Tony’s looking for Mao’s food a conversation was struck from my left elbow. A woman with dyed-red hair and dark owl eyes stood there.

I first notice the patchy, pink sores on her face. At this instance a lady to her left was speaking anxiously over her shoulder toward us as she walked out of the aisle. We’re in aisle 6.

The woman then stares at me, as if awaiting my concerns, and asks if I have two cats. I told her one. She said she had two cats. Fat cats. Boys. I told her I bet she spoiled them.

She was a bonafide cat-lady. She was pleased for that statement. (I presumed the cats were the source of her facial sores: one can only imagine.) Then I told her mine was a girl, small. She recommended a glossy lavender bag of cat food.

I left telling her "mine eats tuna only." She remained musing in front of the neatly shelved pet-products.