The hardware store near my apartment has a cat. I didn’t know this for the first six months I lived here, which says a lot about how often I actually needed hardware.
His name is apparently Bolt, according to the hand-written sign taped to the end of the paint aisle. He’s gray, kind of fat, and completely unbothered by the sound of power tools. I found him sitting on top of a stack of sandpaper looking like he owned the place, which, honestly, he probably does.
I’d gone in for a lightbulb. One lightbulb. It was one of those weeks where that felt like a lot to ask of myself. I stood in the wrong aisle for a while, not really reading anything on the shelves, and then Bolt jumped down and walked directly into my legs like I was an obstacle course. I reached down to pet him and he went completely limp, just full ragdoll, purring loud enough that a guy two aisles over asked if I had a motor running.
I stayed longer than I needed to. Found the lightbulb eventually. The guy at the register said Bolt shows up every morning when they unlock the door and nobody knows where he goes at night. “Just appears,” he said, like that was a totally normal thing.
I think about that sometimes. How some weeks the thing that gets you out of your head for ten minutes is a fat hardware store cat who doesn’t know or care that you needed that.