This is basically halfway to being a children's book pic.twitter.com/DjwUPHy9Wz
— Erin McGuire (@e_mcguire_) November 29, 2017
This is the Internet, so of course Max has an Instagram account, and also got a story in the Washington Post:
Meet Max, the cat who lost the library but won the Internet https://t.co/8xcSXXVEGM
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 30, 2017
… Max spent time on the streets as a young cat, so he learned to roam early on. About a year ago, he was adopted at a shelter by Connie Lipton, who lives across a small street from Macalester, where Lipton’s husband teaches religious studies. Max made very clear that he wanted to continue roaming, Lipton said in an interview Wednesday, so they let him.
And roam he did, making friends across campus. Last summer, Max hung out at a reunion event that featured live music and a large tent. He enjoyed spending time on a vast green where students play Frisbee. He frequented student housing down the street, entered the science building more than once, and stopped by the Spanish and Portuguese department…
“We’ve had multiple calls because his phone number is on his tag,” Lipton said. “He’s a funny guy. He loves people. He loves to socialize — with groups.”…
But when Max began entering the library, zipping by students whose arms were loaded with books, “he started getting in trouble,” Lipton said… An employee is very allergic to cats, and some people worried Max would get locked inside, Lipton said, so a handwritten sign announcing his banishment was posted about a month ago. It was replaced more recently with the version that went viral this week, which was made by an artist and library employee named Christopher Schommer…
The sign recently came down, Lipton said, because Max’s roaming privileges have been revoked. A major construction project is happening on campus, and she didn’t want the cat to somehow get stuck in its mess. He now has a red harness and a leash, not that he’s happy about it.
“He’s going crazy. He cries and howls and paces around, looking out the windows,” Lipton said. “I’m really hoping he takes to walking on the leash. Then I can just walk him over there and he can still see his peeps and have his social life.”…
Such sociability is a condition for which red tabby boys are known — by cat standards, they’re party animals. Our current redhead, Rocket the Viking, is a rescue we’re pretty certain escaped from his original home in search of a good time, and then couldn’t find his way back. He’s also inherited the Siamese genes that lead to a depraved appetite (term of veterinary art) for various inedible fibers. In the three years he’s lived here, his unnatural desires and burglary skills have cost us some hundreds of dollars in sweaters, t-shirts, socks, towels, jeans, dish scrubbies, etc. (We installed child-proof latches — which don’t always thwart him — on the cupboards, and keep the toilet brush container rubber-banded shut.) There is one room to which *none* of the pets are allowed access, because that’s where my clothes/hobbies/sewing supplies are stored; needless to say, Rocky thinks of this as The Big Sock Candy Mountain, and spends hours trying to work the doorknob & complaining in his meezer yowl when he’s once again rebuffed…
***********
Apart from sympathizing with a guy so cruelly deprived of his Feline Rights, what’s on the agenda for the day?