This is a public service announcement, exclusively for beautiful people.
Are you looking for two shy cats?
Yes, as a matter of fact, you are.
Of course you are.
We have already established that you are beautiful people.
If you were not so beautiful, you would not be here.
It is a biological fact, confirmed by 99% of scientists and all four Monkees, that Tabby’s Place people are beautiful.
(Do not worry about the other 1% of scientists. They also believe leggings are pants, and other fringe theories.)
What makes you so beautiful?
Well, it is not your shag haircuts or velveteen bell-bottoms, although you wear them well.
It is the light that rushes into your eyes when you see a frightened cat.
He may be trying to remain unseen. He may wish he had a bowl cut to burrow under, so you can’t meet his eyes beneath his bangs. He may be trembling in blankets like an electrified burrito.
He may even be spitting out songs in the key of “I DO NOT LIKE YOU,” and hissing harmonies to the effect of, “humans are hideous hunks of horseradish.”
It is too late. You are smitten, because you are beautiful.
Don’t get bashful on me now. I have beheld your beauty. I have seen how your face floods with love, before love is “earned.”
I have seen how that honest place between your eyebrows scrunches up at the thought that love could ever be earned.
I have witnessed your patience with the hopeless and the hissing.
And, because you are beautiful, we expect major developments in the field of monkee business.
This brings me back to my hypothesis: you are looking for two shy cats. Namely, Davey and Mickey.
As befits their names, Davey Jones and Mickey Dolenz are not merely “shy.” They are exquisitely shy, in the manner of both Monkees and monkeys.
Monkees are known for being Daydream Believers, and also “those guys that were definitely not the Beatles but kind of looked like them, sorta.”
Monkeys are known for being surprisingly brilliant and impossibly fun, and also for having long tails that tell the truth.
Davey could not stop telling the truth if he tried. He would never do such a thing, because he is beautiful. To be beautiful is always also to be honest.
Although he may appear to be a cat who hides, Davey has not held back a strand of sincerity. The truth is, he is sensitive and pensive, with a heart as deep as a bass drum.
The truth is, he has been astonished to be alive since he first accepted that impossible mission, “being alive.”
The truth is, he is overwhelmed, which is the most honest possible reaction to “being alive.”
The truth is, he has more songs than stripes, but he is waiting for someone beautiful enough to hear them.
If Davey is a troubadour, his brother Mickey is a scientist. The Monkee Mickey was a drummer. The feline Mickey studies rhythms too soft for most to hear.
He is fearful, yes, but that is not his major. He is, first and foremost, thoughtful. Mickey thinks deeply about the hands that bring his breakfasts. He ponders the voices that remain kind, whether he hides or blinks.
He is developing theories for why the love at Tabby’s Place does not spring a leak, and nothing seems to puncture all this patience. Behind Mickey’s buttercream face is a mind too beautiful to be brash.
To the drowsy and distracted, our meek Monkees could be diagnosed as “harder-to-adopt cats.” You cannot hug them, carry them like capuchin monkeys, or dress them in little corduroy jackets and make them sing.
But you can love them exactly as they are, which is the best way to be beautiful together.
Are you looking for two shy cats? Of course you are.
And you will find them here at Tabby’s Place, schooling us all in the arts and sciences of love.