I'd noticed the signs back last Sunday as I was on my way to the Folk School but I was running late, due to a traffic jam near Waynesville and promised myself to stop on the return trip.
I mean, who could resist? Left to my own devices, I'd probably stop to see a giant ball of string . . .
And it's the American Museum of the House Cat. Implying there must be others in other countries. I can only imagine . . .
A sign directed visitors to enter through the adjoining Antique Mall and to ask someone to let the proprietors of the Cat Museum know that there were visitors upon which the proprietors (who evidently live behind the museum) would let said visitor in. For five dollars.
Well, I was game. The whole setup seemed both silly and charming . . .
But alas! I was too early and the antique mall was closed. I would have had to wait almost an hour till it opened and I was eager to get on home.
I like to imagine, however, that had I gotten in, the folks (he would have been named Tom and she would have gone by Kitty) would have walked me through the exhibits, asking about my own cats and telling me of theirs.
"Where are you all from?" I would have asked and Kitty would have told me that they had met in the Catskills but had lived in Catalooche for many years. I would have been offered a cup of catnip tea and a cat head biscuit or two and I would have admired the arrangement of dried cattails (the aquatic sort) and cat briers, while paging through the museum's catalog. And I would have promised to come back next year, on my way to the Folk School -- barring some cataclysmic catastrophe. And as I walked back to my car, I would have wondered if I'd really seen the tip of a furry gray tail, twitching at the hem of Kitty's skirt.
