In the immortal words of They Might Be Giants, you’re older than you’ve ever been, and now you’re even older.

And now you’re even older.
And now you’re even older.

Weak and wobbly creatures that we are, humans tend to be bothered by this phenomenon. We do not want to be older, and we most certainly do not want to be old. I can remember, even as a little girl, shopping with my Mom and having her hold up borderline-matronly shirts, only to turn to me and ask, “is this old fartly?”

(I was always honest. Still am. Always will be. Word to the wise: if you think it might be old fartly, it is.)

Cats, in addition to not giving a fig about age-appropriate dressing, utterly refuse to agitate over age. Everyone old is young again when food or a favorite human appears, and some oldsters wear their age like a shimmering satiny cape.

They’re no old farts. Call them old pharts, since they’re old and dorky enough to still use that 90s word that never should have been coined, phat; and phat enough to make it fresh.

Chief among our old pharts this fall is one Walter Rosenberg. With his half-Groucho mustache and half-pitiful eyes, he wheedled out our sympathy from the hour of his arrival. Found floundering in a parking lot, Walt was an old boy in desperate need of love and calories and compassion.

Poor old cat.
Poor, hungry, needy, lonely, sad sad sad old cat.

Poor, pitiful, deeply dupeable us.

With a few much-needed pounds and a few weeks of level-900 loving, Walter reclaimed his old phartly fire…and he’s not stopped firing since.

Whooda thunk, when we first saw Walt’s weary old face, that we’d soon be hanging WANTED signs on every door in the lobby?
Whooda thunk, when we felt Walt’s bony bony bones, that he’d soon be the scourge of the Community Cats, Genghis Khan in a half-‘stache?

Walter always knew.

Now it’s up to us to keep him from beating every speck of stuffing out of every cat in his orbit. On long, agelessly old phartly legs, Walt sprints in and out of the Community Room, pounding Pixie and beating Beamer and leaping like a deer. In the event that we successfully kick him out of the Community Room — screaming and growling and uttering utterly un-old-phartly language all the way — he will dart into the hallway, headed for…

…the door?
…the promised land?
…some mystery goal he holds in his old, gold heart?

Old pharts are entitled to their secrets, I suppose. In the meantime, we’ll just take a tip from Walter and wear our ages lightly.

PS: The Linda Fund. It expires Friday. C’mon, kittens, get yo’ donations matched while the matchin’s happenin’.

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