The Search for A-Pop -- 3

This fluffy, orange, new arrival looks like an A-Pop in the making, but Pop is always a girl, not a boy.

"Ariel is the love of my life and very sweet." Isn't that exactly what people used to say about Arabella GingerPop, even at times of maximum chaos?

Bashful, who was adopted in Minnesota, is not at all arrogant. But, according to Professor Barkalot's theory, she may be part of A-Pop all the same.

Her first break came when our Salt Lake City adoption group reported that a cat named Ariel, fitting Pop’s description to a T, had just gone to a delightful new home. Her new person, Maureen, agreed to take a photo and send it here. “Ariel is the love of my life, and very sweet,” she added. (Isn’t that exactly what people used to say about Arabella GingerPop?)

Next, Tammy looked for big, fluffy, orange, female, adoptable cats on the Internet. She found just one, named Bashful, who lives in Minnesota where she was recently adopted to a new home. She is, as her name implies, quite bashful, and not at all arrogant, so I wondered at first whether she could really be A-Pop.

Could A-Pop be in your home?
Tammy had a further consultation with Professor Barkalot to discuss our latest findings. The professor reminded her that A-Pop’s magical powers mean that she is not necessarily bound by space and time like the rest of us. She could, in fact, even be living in many homes at once – and quite possibly in yours.

The professor even posited a remarkable new theory: that every big, fluffy, orange, domestic longhair, female cat may be a manifestation of A-Pop.

So, if you have a cat at home who fit’s A-Pop’s description, please send us a photo.

One more thing: According to the professor, A-Pop and the Great Egyptian Cat Goddess are rarely far apart. This could mean that if one of your cats at home, other than the orange one, is regal and imperious, you may have unwittingly landed the entire Ancient Egyptian pantheon in your household.

The Seven Signs of A-Pop

1. She is big, orange all over, and very fluffy.
2. She is a domestic, longhair girl – not a boy, and not Persian, Siamese, or any other type.
3. She is handsome and arrogant, highly charismatic, and yet with a certain engagingly vulnerable quality.
4. Her bushy orange tail is capable of laying waste to any unsecured object within a three-mile radius of her being.
5. She is endowed with all manner of seemingly inexplicable magical powers including, perhaps, dematerialization and teleportation, but not behavior modification.
6. You suspect that she may, like the original A-Pop, be the source of all chaos in your household and, quite possibly, the entire universe, but ...
7. You love her to distraction all the same.

This would obviously be quite big news – big enough, indeed, for me to win another Pulitzer Award this year.

If you have a cat who could be A-Pop, send a photo to Tomato’s Investigative Reports, Best Friends Magazine, Kanab, UT 84741. Or e-mail it to tomato@bestfriends.org