He’s still deciding if Tabby’s Place is the Ritz.
He’s overwhelmed by life, liberty, and the number of flavors of Cheez-Its.
But if you’re looking for a cat more wholesome than a Wheat Thin and cuter than a Goldfish, Triscuit is the salt of your earth.
Poor Triscuit. You would think his name might include a lifetime supply of fancy cheeses with little ham hats. But the only cracker-adjacent item in Jonathan’s office is a jar of peanut butter whose origin no one knows.
Perhaps it’s just as well. The little white cat with the sooty cowl and cloak is not exactly agitating for appetizers. It wasn’t so long ago that snacks were catch-as-catch-can, and the persistence of breakfasts is still bewildering. Triscuit has not forgotten the ragged, rambling cat colony from which he came with fifty-plus friends and neighbors. Triscuit can not remember a time he felt so nourished, and it makes him nervous.
After all, there is a reason some sad soul came up with the words “too good to be true,” isn’t there? A cat can’t be too careful around something so perishable as hope.
Yes, it’s true that things have gone from better to better. The early days turned out to be a tailgate party for a big game that seems to have more than four quarters, or innings, or…well, Triscuit isn’t so sure about sports, so let’s just say the thing is in overtime. But that’s the trouble around this big table. Nobody seems to be keeping track of time at all.
The breakfasts keep coming, whether Triscuit hides, huddles, or works up his whole-wheat courage and stands right in the center of Jonathan’s office. Nobody is tapping their watch or watching the meter. There are no umpires or evaluators or even antsy hosts clearing the table. There is only a sea of servers, googly-eyed and giggly as jelly just because Triscuit exists.
Is there really no way to lose this?
Triscuit asks Baby Yoda, the “better” to his “cheddar.” Triscuit asked Jonathan if they might rename Baby Yoda “Uneeda Biscuit,” but Jonathan said they would have to take that up with Nabisco. Meanwhile, Baby Yoda, the trembling tea cake with the teardrop eyes, is the right cat to reassure Triscuit. Baby Yoda’s cheese nearly slid off his cracker. Baby Yoda had FIP, that dreadful disease that crushes cats in the prime of life. But the smitten servers showed up eighty-four days in a row, even though Baby Yoda was too terrified to write a thank-you card. They showed up, and they keep showing up, and it sure seems as though that is the only recipe these people know.
Being a whole wheat cat, Triscuit takes this to heart. Every fiber of his being wants to believe. He sprints the office floor like adventurous aioli, a squiggle of courage before crashing back into the box he shares with his best biscuit. But in the time it takes to sprint to safety, Triscuit sees the smiles that won’t turn stale. This is Tabby’s Place. This is the bawdy breakfast table where daily bread gets served whether you say grace or bite the baker.
“Too good to be true”? Hardly. It’s just the required daily allowance of miracles. And tomorrow, it will be here again.