A Meaningful Pet Project

After a weeklong business trip, I was wheeling my bag through the Boston airport at midnight when a young woman approached me. "Excuse me," she said with a French accent. "I have missed my flight home to Paris, and I have here my cat, and do you know where I can go?" She couldn't find a hotel that would take her cat, and her new flight didn't leave until 6 p.m. the next day. As she spoke I sized her up, trying to decide whether this could be a con. Before I knew it I was inviting her to spend the night at my house. (How could I not help a fellow cat person?) She looked surprised but said, "Okay, why not?" I put her and her cat in my spare bedroom, fashioning a litter box out of a file-box lid and mulch from my garden. I lent her a pair of pajamas -- the airline wouldn't release her luggage -- and gave her a short tour of Boston on the way to the airport. A few weeks later she sent me a beautiful linen tablecloth as a thank-you gift. I like to think I left her with a good impression of America and repaid some of the hospitality I'd enjoyed on my many trips abroad.
-- Anne McCrory, Boston, Massachusetts