I have a coworker here that feels compelled to tell me some new BIG story about her cats, every fucking day. At first I listened because I’m new and and just getting to know folks here so I figure better to listen than to talk until I get accustomed to everyone. Since I too have a couple of felines I turn around and relate similar cat stories. You know, personalities, quirks, favorites. That sort of thing. Just making conversation.
After a bit I realize that her cats are FAR more integral in her life than mine are in my life. Now whenever she wanders around this way I have to listen to her latest tale of how foo-foo or whoever jumped in the tub that STILL had water in it or how they woke her up at 4 in the morning.
It’s gotten so I cringe everytime I hear she says ‘Wait til you hear the latest…’ and she me a tale of how one cat chased the other for trying to eat her food.
I actually wouldn’t mind if they were interesting stories. But lady, the fact that you cat hide under the bed all night because she was mad AIN’T NEWS. SHUT THE FUCK UP!
I have cats. I like to talk about my cats. I think they’re adorable.
My co-worker Jenny has kids. She likes to talk about her kids. She thinks they’re the bee’s knees.
However, I know how to keep my mouth shut. I tell my cat stories only to the other single female obsessed cat-owning lawyers in the office. For this reason, (I think) nobody here thinks of me as “that lady who has all those boring cat stories.”
Jenny, on the other hand, can’t ever stop blabbing about her kids. How wonderful they are, what they’re doing, who they’re dating, blah blah blah. She even passed around a picture of her teenage son at a meeting of the women lawyers and asked us if we thought he was really, really handsome. Jenny is considered a self-centered social pariah. She’s actually the punchline to a lot of in-jokes here.
Moral of the story: any topic of conversation can get old quick if you never talk about anything else. Try some variety in your life.
My two best friends have three dogs between them. They used to be quite close as well (my friends, not the dogs), but hadn’t seen each other in years before I went home to visit two summers ago. So my presence in town brought them together again at last and … they spent the whole fucking visit talking about their fucking dogs.
At one point, the friend with whom I was staying said to the other, “I’m really lucky ruadh’s a dog person.” No, I’m just too polite for my own good :rolleyes:
Ugh. Cat stories are usually pretty boring to start with, but daily, mundane cat stories are torture. You need to practice saying “wow, that’s really interesting!” in your most sarcastic tone of voice every time she finishes a story.
Occasional cat talkers are OK, but chronic, cute cat story spouters are the worst, and they have no clue how they are torturing their friends and coworkers. They just don’t. Their cats are their lives.
Just live with it and maybe one day she’ll be nice enough to knit you a sweater out of their combings.
Yes, yes, yes, and oh yea… YES. I love my cat like most people love their kids but I certainly don’t go on about her to people unless I know they feel the same way about their pet(s). Many people who have children will never learn this lesson so I will always take a pet obsessed person over a kid obsessed person any day.
It also doesn’t hurt that the pet lovin’ co-worker doesn’t expect me to work every single holiday so they can be home with Fido & Spot.
Whenever I hear a cat story like that, or read on on a message board, or anything, I just shake my head slightly and mutter under by breath: “People and their fucking cats.” It makes me feel a little better.
