Janet Christie’s Mum’s the Word – are cats and claws in or out on the bus?

Youngest Child phones me while I’m working and with no preamble launches straight in:

“I’ve just seen one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I’m on the bus to work. I had to tell you.”

“You’ve just seen Bruce [Springsteen] walking along Lothian Road?”

“Ew no. Sorry. He’s a bit… Just no. So a girl got on the bus and she had a clear plastic backpack…”

“Oh that’s a bad idea because all of your valuables and personal items…” I jump in because I’m a conversational bull at a gate.

“Wait! So there’s a cat in the backpack. Imagine! The. Best. Thing. Ever. I took a sly video. And she trusts the cat so much she even has the zip open because it’s super well behaved. We couldn’t trust ours to do that, so we’d just have to keep it shut, which is OK because it has air holes. And what’s so weird is I was literally dreaming about that the other night, well it was more of a transparent handbag actually, to carry them around it, but it didn’t work in my dream because they kept escaping. And then I literally see it in real life and it works.

“Well your kitten is too crazy to go on bus journeys and my cat wouldn’t enjoy that at all - too far from my bed. They prefer paw power and would not enjoy seeing the sights, but maybe if we were going to the vet…

“Hold on.” Her voice changes to very polite: “Excuse me, do you mind if I apply nail polish?” she says, obviously to someone who’s sat down next to her. Cat woman? Could be a sticky situation.

Only this week Youngest updated me of the social etiquette of applying makeup on public transport in case I was so minded (I’m not but it’s nice she thinks I might be) and declared nail varnish a step too far: “Just so selfish.” But clearly social mores are moving fast and there’s a seismic shift in what’s acceptable occuring. Or is there?

“No? She says. “But…” I hear her say, then back to me: “Got to go love you bye.”

So cats in backpacks are go, but nail varnish on the bus, I’ll have to wait till she gets home to find out if it’s still a no. Tenterhooks.

Janet Christie’s Mum’s the Word – Walking across Scotland The John Muir Way