Cat Man

We live on the first floor and there are two more floors in our building. Our apartment is spacey and located in a very peaceful area. The top two floors of our building have two offices and during the day, many people come to these offices.

One fine day, I got my daughter ready to go to school and we were locking the door of our apartment when a man with a long beard climbed the stairs and reached our floor on his way to one of the offices in the top two floors. My daughter was very curious about this new comer and let go of my hand. As I was trying to lock the door, I didn’t pay much attention either. After locking the door I looked up saw the man going towards the second floor.

Suddenly, she screamed, “Mommy, look! Cat Man!” 

My face must have resembled a ripe tomato, I was so embarrassed. I quickly looked up to see whether that man heard my daughters scream. Of course he did, he wasn’t deaf after all. I looked at him apologetically and mind you, he did resemble a cat. His hair was long and sort of frizzy and puffed up. His beard was even worse. It was long and ruffled, unkempt would be a better word to describe his hair and beard.

By then, my daughter was very excited, she could hardly contain herself. She kept on jumping on the spot and chanted, “Cat Man, Cat Man, Cat Man!” 

The man stopped and turned towards us. Oh dear, he was hurt for sure. I thought he would say something at me. I tried to deviate my little chatterbox’s attention to something else, but she didn’t seem to hear me at all. Just then, he waved at her and smiled before he climbed the steps. However, my excited little hyper ball, kept on screaming at the top of her voice.

On our way to school, I thought of explaining to her that it was not nice to call people names, but she was just two years old back then. How can I make her understand?

After a couple of days, I was on my way out when I bumped into someone. He waited for me to recognize him, but I didn’t. Then he sort of cleared his throat and smiled. Just then it hit me, it was the Cat Man. My god, he had cut his hair and trimmed his beard. He looked quit smart, neat and clean. He lingered for a bit more, his eyes shone with happiness. Like last time, he didn’t talk and dashed towards the staircase.

Well, my little girls chatter had definitely made this Cat Man realize that he looked ridiculous and he has changed his appearance. Maybe he didn’t realize that he looked messy with his long hair and beard that reached his tummy, which looked all greasy and dirty. I had a feeling that this time he smiled at me to thank me. He should actually thank my little girl.