Every evening for about 10 days, I trundled over to a friend’s house to feed Pidgin. No, Pidgin is not a bird. Nor is she a hybrid language. She is a cat who sounds like she’s speaking a hybrid language all the time. A paralyzed vocal fold causes her to greet me at the door with a cooing sound rather like a cautious pigeon, follow me around sounding like an expectant pigeon, and sit on my lap a purr sounding like a cross between a pigeon and an insistent baby goat.

“What have you been up to today, Pidgin?”

“Mmmaaa-aa-aaa-aaaa”

“Are you hungry?”

“maa-ha-ha-AAAAA”

And there’s nothing quite like listening to her eat or take a bath. Every breath out while her mouth and tongue are at work sounds like a tiny child eating and saying “Om nom nom nom… Om nom nom nom.”

Of course, part way through my stint as Pidgin-sitter, Pippin realized that I’d begun cheating on him with another cat. I’d get home only to be greeted by a disapproving flick of the ears and a haughty stalking away to another room. I’d sit down on the couch and wait for it… wait for it… and shortly he’d reappear, too curious to know where I’d been and with whom to stay away long. He’d attach his nose to my fingers, my pants, my sleeves. He’d shove that nose deep into the cracks between my fingers, and my nail beds. He’d lick and sniff, nibble and sniff, nudge and sniff trying to figure out what this other cat must be like to entice me away from him.

This interrogation done, he’d turn his back on me, place himself neatly in a seated position with his tale tucked primly around his front paws, and contemplate the nature of love and betrayal, the apparent appeal of older female cats, his status as a young male cat, and whether or not this would affect his food supply. In the end, he’d decide that jealousy might best serve his cause. Perhaps if he could make me believe that he no longer cared for me, I’d realize what I was missing give up my liaisons with this new mistress. He’d saunter off in a show of boredom and nonchalance, “forgetting” his customary nap on my lap, and wander off to find my down jacket to cuddle for the evening.