In the chaos following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, looters specifically targeted Royal Street in the French Quarter. Although just a quick walk from the drunken frat boys, sad strip shows, and tacky bars of Bourbon Street, Royal's high-end antique shops epitomize a world of luxury and elegance and privilege that most of us can only gawp at. After Lake Pontchartrain overtopped the levees, then, and before the National Guard descended to restore a highly racialized version of "law and order," looters descended on Royal Street. They broke the plate-glass windows, smashed all those Regency chairs and Louis Quinze tables and Delft china sets, spray-painted the walls, and then, in shop after shop after shop, defecated in the cash registers.
I had thought that out of all the animal species, only human beings were capable of actions of such symbolic and substantive fury.
I underestimated my cats.
We've had friends from Britain come to stay, and because one of the group has severe cat allergies, we boarded out the kitties. When I picked up our two cats from Petz Plaza yesterday morning, I knew they were miffed, but by the evening, they seemed happy; I assumed all was forgiven. Until the wee hours of this morning, when one of the cats (aided and abetted, I am sure, by the other), jumped on the bed--our bed, the bed containing both of us, the bed in which we were sleeping--and left us a steaming pile of shit.
Message received.
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