When Meena heard that Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance had once said that “childless cat ladies” were running the country and trying to make everyone as miserable as they were, she immediately thought of one of the happiest people she knew: her good friend Mary.
Mary had nine cats, and what was even more unusual than having so many cats were the names that Mary had given them: Felicity, Serenity, Charity, Clarity, Dignity, Purity, Affinity, Fidelity and Sanity.
Mary was a Republican who had voted for Obama in 2008, then for Romney in 2012, and was still trying to erase from her memory whom she had voted for in 2016. She deemed it the second-worst mistake of her life, but only because her marriage to her first husband, Roger, lasted longer than a single presidential term. The divorce proceedings dragged on for more than a year, partly because Roger wanted shared custody of the cats.
Those were a smaller group of cats, all different except for Felicity, a gray and white cat who was almost 16. Thankfully a judge had ruled in Mary’s favor, giving her full custody of the five cats. But he also gave Roger visitation rights. He could visit the cats once a week for as long as three hours. Mary did not want Roger to enter her home, so she placed the cats on the front stoop and peeked through a window as Roger spoiled the cats with tasty treats. If only he had treated her as well as he treated the cats, their marriage might still be chugging along. But then she wouldn’t have met Vincent, who was the perfect husband, even if he was a Democrat.
As Meena expected, Mary was none too thrilled about J.D. Vance’s words. “I’m proud to be a cat lady,” she said to Meena as they sipped tea on the deck of Meena’s home in Hills and Dales, a quiet neighborhood in West Lafayette, Indiana. “Call us cat ladies all you want, but don’t go around calling us ‘childless.’ That’s mean-spirited.”
Meena nodded. She knew that Mary and Vincent had spent thousands on fertility treatment. They eventually decided to be foster parents and took care of three siblings for more than five years.
“Just because J.D. and his wife decided to have children and were lucky enough to succeed does not give him the right to throw the word ‘childless’ around,” Mary said. “Besides, some people choose not to have children. That’s their freedom.”
“If you don’t have children, your vote shouldn’t count as much as a parent’s vote, according to J.D.,” Meena said.
Mary chuckled. “Ah, the wisdom of J.D. How did we ever survive without it? I feel a little sorry for him though.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has no idea what he has unleashed on himself. The wrath of the childless cat ladies.”
“What are you going to do?”
“You’ll see,” Mary said. “Yetunde and I have something planned.”
Yetunde was their Nigerian-American friend, who lived on Mitch Daniels Boulevard, not far from Purdue University Airport. She and her husband, Nnamdi, had a single cat and no children yet.
“Are you organizing a protest march?” Meena asked.
“You’ll see. Just look for the signs around town.”
Meena spotted the first signs outside several homes in her neighborhood: “Cat Ladies for Kamala.”
Mary’s yard displayed the same sign, as well as a sign that said, “Don’t call me childless and I won’t call you brainless.”
Outside the Neon Cactus, a dance club at Levee Plaza, someone had painted a large mural showing Kamala Harris dancing with three cats, along with a question: “Have You Ever Seen J.D. Dance?”
At Pet Depot Plus on Sagamore Parkway West, Meena saw a letter-board sign that said, “10% discount on all cat supplies until election day. Use the promo code: JD Sucks.”
Perhaps the most visible sign was in Yetunde’s yard. Beside a huge blow-up black cat with neon green eyes, Yetunde had placed a sign that said, “Honk if you love cats more than J.D. Vance.”
But after just a few days, the City of West Lafayette asked Yetunde to take down the sign. “Your home is too close to the airport,” the code enforcement officer told her. “The pilots are having trouble hearing with all the honking going on.”
