Lulu the Cat Hater

The previous post put me in mind of Lulu the Cat Hater.

I met Lulu (short for 'Guadalupe') when I was in Texas. We seemed to hit it off right away. But she was a sales rep for one of our vendors, so she was 'off limits.' But then she was abruptly laid off, and I gave her a call at home.

"How did you get my home number?" she asked. "I was a reporter for 25 years," I replied. Actually it was the result of intense Googling and some educated guesswork, but I had picked the right number.

We met at a sports bar near the AMC Gargantuplex at Huebner Oaks. I had a beer, she had iced tea. We talked about work and our houses and stuff – usual first date chitchat. I mentioned my two cats in passing, and she suddenly interrupted me to blurt out, "I don't like cats."

It wasn't just that she said it – she interrupted me to say it.

I don't remember much about the movie except it starred Kevin Bacon and there was a girl's body buried in the wall of a house or something. Great date movie.

We headed back to our cars, with her whipping out her DayRunner to see where she had to be next. She had sort of slotted me in between a sales rep meeting and a trip to the spa, and she was almost sprinting to her car to get to her next appointment.

I never called her again. I'm usually open to a second date just in case the first one was an odd misfire, but not if someone goes out of their way to demonstrate cat hostility.

She told a mutual friend she wanted me to call her, but I never did.

Who knows? Maybe if I had placed that second call, we'd be together today, living in San Antonio. She would have learned to love cats, and we would sit on the porch together, hand in hand, covered in cat hair, watching the sun set.

Or maybe not.

I Googled her name just now, but I couldn't find anything current on her.