- Introduce yo’self
My name is Scout. I’m Anna Lawless-Collins’s 14 year-old tuxedo cat, always dressed to impress. I was born under her porch when she was in law school, so Anna and her roommate adopted me and my brother, Catticus Finch. When Anna’s roommate graduated and moved out she took my brother with her (and good riddance, he’s a lazy bum of a cat). I’ve travelled with Anna from that apartment in Jamaica Plain to New Hampshire, Quincy, and now to our house in Walpole. A guy (Anna’s husband, I guess) moved in with us a while ago and four years ago a baby joined us too. Which is ok, I guess. I mostly hide from the baby. My favorite pastimes are begging for treats, chasing a laser dot, knocking stuff over, yelling at birds and animals outside, and murdering the mice in the basement (although I’m sometimes thwarted in that goal when the humans save the mice and put them outside). I also really like that Anna is home more now. I spend most of the day either in her lap or hanging around her office.
- What does Anna do for fun?
Anna seems to like something she calls “exercise,” which just seems like a huge waste of energy to me. Why run for no reason when you could be napping on the heating vent under the couch? I like when she does yoga, though, because I can help her by climbing on her back while she’s doing it. She also really likes to knit, which I love because I can sleep on whatever she’s making. Or I can climb into her lap while she’s knitting, which I’m pretty sure is not in the way at all. Reading is also good, since I can just hang out with her on a blanket. I don’t like it when she does things outside, but I can watch through the window and yell at the animals out there. She’s also into some seriously nerdy pop culture. I judge her pretty hard for that. She and her husband also change the lyrics to songs to be about me, which I think is great, since really everything is about me anyway. She used to spend a lot more time out of the house, taking the baby to stuff or visiting other people, but for some reason that stopped about two years ago.
- What is your favorite thing about Anna?
I’m glad not to be living under that porch anymore. Houses are a lot warmer and softer (see the aforementioned heating vents), so giving me a home was pretty great. She’s also the only person I trust enough to really cuddle with. She always assumes the best of everyone and likes just about everyone she meets, which I just don’t understand at all, but I guess is pretty nice.
- What is your least favorite thing about Anna?
She doesn’t give me treats whenever I ask, which is pretty unreasonable, I think. Also, she’s really bad at sitting still! She’s always hopping up and down. It’s hard to settle into her lap when she’s bustling around the house.
- What is Anna’s favorite guilty pleasure?
Since sometime in about 2016 she started to say she doesn’t have the emotional space for stressful reading, since the real world is stressful enough. She used to love thrillers and all kinds of creepy books, but now she mostly just reads books with happy endings. She’ll throw in sci fi, nonfiction, or fantasy or whatever, but mostly it’s just fluff.
- If Anna won the lottery what would she do with the money?
Probably something boring, like pay off her mortgage and the debts of the people she loves, fund college for that kid, and donate it to causes she cares about (bah humbug). I say she should create a separate wing of the house entirely devoted to soft surfaces and Greenies.
