Free The Tao of Martha by Jen Lancaster Page A

wanted for my birthday. I just wanted my stupid sauce.” And then I began to sob in earnest, not because I was sad, but because the book—and really the whole awful year—had been so stressful.
    Fletch moved next to me and patted my hair. “Jen, I’m so sorry. I stopped stirring for a second; I swear. I can make more.”
    “No, I’m just tired,” I wailed. “That’s it. I’m fine. I’m just tired.”
    “What would make you feel better?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Do you want to go out to dinner?”
    “NOOO! I can’t go out in public; I’m hideous.”
    “Do you want your cake now instead?”
    “No.”
    “Do you want me to watch your stupid housewife show with you?”
    “No. You’ll just make fun of it and then I’ll be even sadder.”
    “True.” Then Fletch squared his shoulders and took some deep breaths, like he was wrestling with something internally. “Do…you want to go to the shelter tomorrow and pick out a new cat?”
    I sat up straight and narrowed my gaze. “Do not toy with me right now. I’m in no mood for toying.”
    He looked right into my eyes. “I’m not toying with you. I’m serious. I’m giving in. You win. So, do you want to adopt a new cat tomorrow for your birthday?”
    My tears stopped and I began to collect myself, suddenly forgetting all my monkey dreams. “I would love that. Thank you.”
    “Good.” Then he gave me a big kiss and went back to his seat.
    I began eating my filet with renewed vigor.
    After a few seconds I said, “Hey, Fletch?”
    He smiled at me. “Yeah?”
    “We should adopt two.”

    H ere’s something Martha never tells you: Don’t go to an animal shelter and ask for the two hardest-to-adopt cats they have.
    Because you’ll get the two hardest-to-adopt cats they have.
    I’m not sure why I believed that I’d somehow be rewarded by requesting the cats most in need of a good home. Maybe I thought all the volunteers would be so moved by my compassion and bonhomie that they’d, in fact, point me to the two most awesome felines.
    When we arrived at the shelter, we sat down with a volunteer and began to complete adoption forms. She’d handed me a clipboard with a stack of paper, and after I finished the first page, I turned to what I thought was the second.
    “Are there more pages?” I asked, gesturing to the stack. “This is just the first sheet over and over.”
    “No, no,” she assured me, “this is it.”
    Huh. Turns out it’s way easier to get a shelter cat than a rescue-group pit bull. Libby’s adoption required six double-sided pages of essay questions, three character witnesses, and affidavits from Maisy’s oncologist, surgeon, hydrotherapist, and primary-care vet.
    One would think that employing a canine oncologist, surgeon, hydrotherapist, and regular vet would exempt us from the home visits and interviews, but no. We had to run the whole gamut. At the shelter, we had to promise only that we wouldn’t use our new kitties as clay-pigeon substitutes when shooting skeet, like, if at all possible.
    While we waited to meet candidates, my attention was drawn to thehuge glass wall at the end of the hall. Easily what were three hundred cats peaceably coexisted in a maze of indoor/outdoor rooms filled with a million toys, scratching posts, and multilevel beams. An entire feline kingdom lounged, waiting to meet us.
    Fletch nudged me and pointed. “It’s like looking into your future.”
    “Not funny,” I replied.
    “But not untrue,” he countered.
    I scowled in return.
    My first clue that things were about to go horribly awry should have been when the volunteer pulled two cats out of a small cage they shared, and not the big kitty commune. But at no point did it occur to me that maybe there was a reason that these two particular cats had to be kept separate from the three hundred others.
    The volunteer handed me a bite-size tortoiseshell cat with green eyes that took up almost half her face. Fletch took her plump counterpart, a gray Siamese