The Gift Question: What To Give Someone Whose Cat Is Their Whole Personality
They do not want another mug. Well — they might want one very specific mug.
Every family has one: the person whose camera roll is ninety percent cat, who narrates the cat's inner life at dinner, who says "we" when only one of them has opinions. Shopping for this person is easy once you accept the truth. The gift is never really for them. It is for the cat.
The hierarchy of acceptable gifts
- Something with the cat's actual face on it. Not a generic cat. Their cat. The distinction matters enormously and they will check.
- Something the cat can ignore expensively, such as a bed he will never enter.
- Something for the human, grudgingly, if it acknowledges the cat's seniority.
Why a portrait sits at the top
A painted portrait does the one thing no gadget or novelty can: it says the cat is not a pet but a personage. It hangs in the hallway like an ancestor, because in every important sense he is one. It is the only gift that makes the recipient laugh, then go quiet, then text you a photograph of it on the wall.
The correct gift for a cat person is a monument to the cat.
Order in good time — a painting, like a cat, keeps its own schedule. For December giving, aim to commission by early December and the mantelpiece will be ready before the tree is.