Take it easy on Vinnie.
He is doing the best he can.
It’s just that he’s under a lot of pressure these days.
What, you don’t see it? You’re telling me it looks like his job responsibilities top out at “completing eighteen hours of sleep a day”? You say his Key Performance Indicators are “maximizing sunbeam density” and “conducting quality control on beds resembling Hostess Sno-Balls”?
What is your point, exactly?
No one is giving Vinnie a doctoral stipend for his research into the number of cats who can squeeze onto the ramp simultaneously. Have you ever looked up and seen one great mega-mammal with twelve eyes? You can thank Vinnie.
No one is paying overtime for the third-shift work of filling gaps. But there Vinnie is, administering pro-bono cuddles to any cat who is not currently being cuddled.
Besides, Vinnie is completing all of these high-level managerial tasks without complaining about his title.
His title? Well, it’s “Vinnie,” of course. You’d sooner ask Madonna her last name than this icon. And a title like “Vinnie” comes with responsibilities.
When you are a Vinnie, you must be as sensitive as van Gogh. Our Vinnie may never have seen that other Vincent’s wheatfields or cafes, but he knows the peril and promise of a starry night. Before Tabby’s Place, Vinnie lived at the mercy of the sky. Outdoors, unnamed, he knew what it meant to hunger for purpose. (Also poultry.) No one needed him. No one knelt to his level.
Until someone did, and the grey-scale world came into full color.
When you have been painted into love’s landscape, you do not forget.
When you have ceased to be unseen, you can’t not see Earth’s invisibles.
So, Vinnie the artist attaches himself to cats who cower. He is the protector of the petrified. If a cat can’t believe that love has come to stay, Vinnie fills in their sketches. The Suite E ramp is his studio, and any comforted cat is his masterpiece.
When you are a Vinnie, you must also muster up the marinara of every Vince who ever burst into the house yelling “buongiorno!” Vinnie is a natural introvert, but he will stretch like mozzarella at love’s request.
The cat who cowered outdoors will not leap into your arms for an inter-species tarantella. He has not yet been adopted, because he is not a Pizza Bagel you can heat for thirty seconds in the microwave. You must go slow, or you will burn the sauce.
But Vinnie’s simmer is low because it is strong. Talk to him one-on-one after Sunday dinner, and you will find a gentle protector. Cats are not the only ones Vinnie is called to comfort.
When you are a Vinnie, you are ultimately a cousin.
Vinnie leaves the boisterous table to find the pimpled outcast. Vinnie brings the good cheesecake all the way from Brooklyn, but he’ll leave it on the counter if someone is missing from the table.
Vinnie loves everyone, but his tender heart does triage. He looks for the little and the left-out. He leaves the Hostess Sno-Ball bed to warm the most worried cat in the room.
He may leave you wondering why you could pet him yesterday, but not today.
He may need to catch his breath from breathing life into so many lives.
But he will never leave you.
So take it easy on Vinnie. He’s doing the best he can.