Double Take

I was waiting for the elevator. Three Chinese twenty-somethings were squatting down to play with the filthy street cat that’s been living in the front hallway for the past few days. It looked as though they were cradling the cat in their arms, and I’ll admit I was surprised that people choose to get to close to this animal. As I looked closer, it looked like another cat, a white one, was hanging around one of the guy’s necks. I could see the thin shape of what I thought was a cat’s arm from his chest to the side of his neck.

I thought this was odd, to be sure, but then I looked closer. When the other two shifted I could clearly see that it was a necklace. Well, not a necklace, although it was hanging around his neck. What I thought was a cat’s arm, was actually a stuffed “necklace” leading down to the face of a stuffed teddy bear.

I looked away immediately, so as to hide the surely-inappropriate expression on my face. But I couldn’t keep myself from stealing a few more glances before the elevator came. He was dressed otherwise normally in jeans and a hoodie, but hanging from this grown man’s neck was a giant teddy bear head.