The Brutality Report - Cat Hair

I've already talked with you people about the scope of this column. For the umpteenth time, the Brutality Report is not just about death pits and existential beatdowns. There are just as many brutalities in one's day to day humiliations.

Take cat hair. I'm covered in it. As I type this, I am instinctively blowing stray hairs from between the keys on my keyboard. Sometimes—OK, every hour—I take a razor blade and carefully clean out the tufts that gather just below the keys. I'm like the guy at the beginning of A Scanner Darkly who is convinced he has bugs on his furniture and clothes and skin and in his hair and lungs, except that in my situation it's fur, and I'm not imagining anything.

Being covered in white cat hair is problematic. In public, I am constantly picking at my clothing, a gesture both fussy and slobbish. It's the worst of both Felix Unger and Oscar Madison. Few of you have sympathy for my predicament. This is cold. If I had a giant squid inking all over me or a bunch of bees squirting honey all over me, each of you would be tripping over yourselves to get some online donation charity thing set up. But no matter. Your lack of sympathy is good, in that it forces me to think on my feet. So far, I've come up with seven solutions for my jam:

A. LINT ROLLERS
I'm at this stage now. I don't mind the waste as much as I mind the ineffectuality. The fur sprouts from my clothing faster than the roller can suck it up. Often, it seems like the wiry hairs are impervious to rollering, washing, scrubbing, or even burning (they just transfer to whatever new clothes I buy).

B. ALL WHITE CLOTHING
This would require mimicking those annoying modern dandies who prance about in straw boaters and spats. Actually, I'd be worse than those guys, because I'd have been forced into dandydom by circumstances, not choice, and the resulting lack of confidence would make me look like a cult leader cast out by his own flock for being too much of a wiener.

C. EMBRACE SITUATION WITH A COMICAL T-SHIRT
For some reason, the honesty of this one appeals to me. I'd have the shirt made up at a crummy Venice Beach tourist shop, and it'd read GOT CAT? or GOT SHAMBLING JERKOFF? or GOT FIVE CENTS TO KICK ME IN THE BALLS?

D. APOLOGIZE TO WORLD WITH COMICAL T-SHIRT
Same as C but with 4 – 6k words in 8-point text on the back.

E. RELEASE CATS INTO THE WILD
Would this work? I have the feeling that I could do this tomorrow and I'd still be picking white hairs off me in the nursing home 50 years from now. Plus, this option doesn't seem fair. They get to romp around in the forest chasing butterflies while I'm still bruising myself with half-hour compulsive lint roller marathons?

F. GIVE UP
It's a short jump from A to F (a lesson we all know from school). Have I already done this just by writing this column?

G. WEAR CLOTHES MADE OUT OF CAT HAIR
This option seems kind of ingenious, combining the honesty of C and D with the simplicity of F, all the while avoiding the hard labor of A, B and E. Would it be hard labor making these new clothes? My feeling is no. All I'd need to do is strip nude, open my arms wide, and allow the cat hair to take over.

Previously – Laundromats