Neighboring with Cats: A Shared Rent for Urban Migrant Workers

The fate with Kaka is only 10 months. It is not long or short, but it is enough to slow down the flow of time since the epidemic.

She was carefully packed into a huge cat cage with black fences, with matching cat litter, cat bowls and cat toys, and was carefully locked. On weekdays, she hates being locked up in a cat cage, and she is used to "screaming" during meetings, clawing at the fence with four claws, her red nose constantly sniffing, and looking at you with her big round eyes and acting like a spoiled child; The long black tail swayed left and right rhythmically, and occasionally lost a few hairs, so small that it was almost invisible.

This time's performance was no exception. Although she didn't realize that this time was not the punishment after the bedwetting, but the cat's first move in her life - she would go to a new place, a new room, have a new roommate, and start a new life.

Master Ziru, wearing a mask, is loading and unloading large and small boxes. With the stumbling and stumbling caused by the transportation, Kaka's cat meow gradually weakened, and disappeared in the sound of the door closing; finally, the elevator closed and went down, and after a few bangs, there was really no sound. There are a few clumps of cat hair left on the ground, and when the wind blows when walking, it will sway, and there is a feeling of Yang Xu, although Beijing's short and beautiful spring has passed.

The cleaning aunt will come to clean in a few days. By then, the cat hair will be taken away along with the furniture and rubbish left, and will disappear completely in this room. Then, after a while, a new tenant will come in and fill it with Ta's personal belongings.

Such partings are very common in urban relocation: on a certain day in a certain month in a certain year, due to factors such as rent increases, landlords’ reclamation, changes in jobs or the environment, etc., entrepreneurs and migrant workers come and go. Young people come and go, and old people migrate with their families and children, creating an intergenerational flow of in and out of a city.

Kaka's flow followed her master, a young man A who just changed jobs and needed to travel for a long time. As early as a month ago, Mr. A decided to move, and as Ta's pet cat, Kaka, who lives in one living room of a certain neighborhood in Beijing, will also move to the living room of another neighborhood.

It was a little reluctant to watch her leave. Since then, in this three-bedroom, one-bedroom house, Kaka will never be seen suddenly going back and forth for "parkour", and she will never see her "liquid" cat lying in the corner gap, and she will not need to be a shit shovel officer to pour food and water for her, Don't worry about her cat hair falling on the kitchen meals and the inner wall of the washing machine, don't worry about her sneaking into the room and the wardrobe top and refusing to come down.

In the future, I will never see her stretching her limbs and grinding her claws on the door, tables and chairs. The whole cat can be about 80 centimeters long; she will never be seen in the living room, rubbing her legs with long gray-black cat hair. ; Occasionally, I want to go out together, and follow the workers to go out to "work", although every time I'm held down by the cat's head and escorted back.

She has big round eyes and long and narrow black eyeliner. The hair is fluffy and soft, but it falls out badly. Her ears move out from time to time with the change of the voice, and they look a little out of place. When the cat's eyes turn into vertical pupils when exposed to light, it will also show some glazed luster, which is really beautiful. Although most of the time, she prefers to be half-closed, but her expression is colder, so it is also understood as "ignoring" - although according to the cat owner, Mr. A, the cat has no expression, only 200 Multiple bones.

In the future, I will never hear her coquettish cat meowing "meow wow wow" deliberately squatting at the door. This used to be the most effective method she used as a neutered silver gradient female cat to come to play with you when no one was playing, especially when everyone closed the door, Afraid of her coming in to make trouble (emphasis: bedwetting, hair loss, parkour).

As a cat, Kaka's real name is not actually called "Kaka", but she is good-natured and spiritual, and when you get acquainted with her, she knows that you are calling her, no matter what her name is - Ka-four, Ka-eight Jin, Ka counseling, Ka squatting, Ka Da Niu, Waka Ka, or even just one syllable "ka".

Every call must be answered. Kaka shares the kitchen, bathroom and living room with two other foreign workers, Mr. B (himself) and Mr. C, but she often wants to explore a new world, visiting the door, sitting on the windowsill or squatting in different rooms. Or lie down and look out the window quietly, although no one knows what she is looking at. When the weather is good, she will also take the initiative to bask in the sun, and the furry long hair on her back softens under the sunlight.

Do cats get bored? This is an unanswered question because cats are either sleeping or eating and playing freely. It is true that Mr. A thinks that cats have no expressions, but Kaka is really expressive, as long as you spend a few more days with her.

She likes to act like a spoiled child, to play with you in and out, to get into bed and sleep, and to "listen" to TV together while you watch TV - rubbing her head against the computer screen to relieve itching, occasionally stepping on the keyboard and being stopped. At this time, she will retreat to the side and bend her two front paws, lie on one side and turn her head to "watch" TV. The three long whiskers on one side hang down naturally, together with the floating hairs on her torso. The roots are distinct and stick to the computer keyboard logically. When he was tired, he turned his head again, and slowly narrowed his cat's eyes until they were completely closed. Only the red and black nose could not see the slight undulations, which was the state of sleep.

She has watched a lot of TV dramas with the migrant workers, the famous ones are not well-known, the good-looking ones are not good-looking, the continuous broadcasts are not continuous, and I don't know if she can understand them, and no one will really ask her if she has I don't understand, it's probably just spending free time together and having fun with each other.

Of course, from a human point of view, cats have a very rich home life and are very curious. Whenever there is light in the room through the crack of the door, or the sound penetrates into the cat's ears, Kaka will seriously squat down at your door, lie down, and start calling "i-ao". Until you decide to go out to walk her, she will stop on her own; or if you sleep with your head covered, after ten or twenty minutes, she will find a warm place to sleep on her own, such as a toilet seat, such as a dustpan, such as a table and chair space below, such as empty cardboard boxes.

After getting to know Kaka, everyone has a better understanding of many idioms and phrases about cats - "night owls", cats are keen to run and jump at night, and many cat lovers also call this behavior "parkour" ”, it can stay up all night when used on humans; “Hide and seek”, you can never guess which corner of the room the cat will run out of in the next second; “Curiosity killed the cat”, cats are a lot of Everything has a strong spirit of exploration, and she bites and bites, even those flowers that she can't eat, so Kaka occasionally gets pollen, and then quickly jumps away, leaving a few cat hairs near the vase.

Cats are amazing creatures and also need education. Because of Kaka's hair loss and frequent bed-wetting, her owner, Mr. A, devoted a lot of energy to hygiene and cleaning, and occasionally sent her back to the cat cage for fear of her making trouble, asking her to "reflect and reflect", but the results were not good. When there was nothing to do, everyone also chatted with Kaka "Meow Meow" to guide her to reduce destructive behavior, and to comb her floating hair by the way: the temperature difference is large, she still needs cat hair to keep warm, and she can't shave for it. .

Courage to say big or small, Kaka is "lost" at home once a week. There used to be many cats in the community that lived in the inconspicuous grass and trees. They were dirty, but it could be seen that they were cats of different breeds. Most likely, it was because they could not contact their owners after walking out of the house, so they had to stray in the community.

Among them, there is a silver gradient cat. Because the same breed is eight-point similar to Kaka, every time I see it, I need to think about whether I have prevented Kaka from running out before going out. Fortunately, it is not her. She just moved from the cathouse to the floor, from the floor to the chair, to the cardboard box, wardrobe, dustpan, window, etc., and occasionally went into the kitchen to find water and delicious food.

My favorite is the top of the cabinet and the edge of the window (closed for a long time). First, there are many cardboard boxes on the top of the cabinet, which can be played and sleeping. No one has counted how many hours she slept a day, but after falling asleep, Kaka would not pay any attention to us, unless someone opened the door to go home, she would be a little attentive and walk over to welcome you home.

Owning a cat can bring a lot of joy, which often comes with the money and energy of taking care of it. The most important thing is that the "shit shoveling gentleman" should spend time with him, regularly feeding, shoveling, and changing cat litter, and must tolerate cats' claws grinding behavior on furniture, night parkour behavior, frequent cat meowing behavior during breeding... .. So you need to be careful when raising cats, one card is enough.

The life span of a cat is more than ten years, and the four-year-old Kaka is just a kitten and will accompany humans for many years. I like her, bless her, hope that the new roommates she meets are cat lovers, and hope her little habits can be corrected.

miss her.