Libraries are great, right? Books that you can read and love and enjoy, and then return when you're done so they don't take up space. Love the concept. But one county government office in New Mexico has seriously changed the library game — because instead of lending books, it is a cat library. You heard me. A library... with cats.
Redditor Loocyloo blew everyone's sleepy, summer-focused minds last Friday when she posted a pic of the newest additions to her office on the r/Aww subreddit: A whole lot of cuddly li'l kittens. According to Loocyloo, employees can "check out" a cat for an hour, pet and cuddle to their heart's delight, and then return back to work a much happier person than when they left. To accommodate those with allergies, cats remain in their play space. Everybody wins.
But the library isn't just for human enjoyment; it benefits the cats as well. Wrote Loocyloo:
I don't work for a company, I work for a county government. They work closely with the county animal shelter, and some kittens and cats are sent to us because we get so much traffic from the public, hopefully someone will see a kitty and adopt! In the meantime, they can socialize with the employees to get used to humans. So far over 100 cats have been adopted.
Ugh, the cute is too much for me. Similar-minded programs, like puppy and piglet rooms, have sprung up at several universities throughout the UK as ways to relieve stress and improve productivity and concentration. But I am not a student in the UK, nor am I a county government employee in New Mexico. Where are my stress-relieving kittens, huh? Where's the fairness in that?
Here are five more places I think I need a baby animal petting place in order to function properly from now on. Thanks in advance, universe!
1. The DMV
I need a $30 check and ten pieces of mail and the lease from my apartment and my original birth certificate and a lock of hair just to renew my license? OK. Cool. I'm petting a cat noggin. The lock of hair isn't long enough and they need my mom to fly in from Ohio to vouch that this birth certificate is real? OKAY COOL I'M STILL PETTING A CAT NOGGIN.
2. The Waiting Room at My Gynecologist's Office
I am chill. I am a chill master. I am chiller than a person wearing a backless gown on a steel examining table with their feet in stirrups answering personal questions about their sexual history.
3. GRE Testing Center
Who can think about the future when, in the present, you have a bag of kittens tumbling over each other because they're just babies and they can't even walk right yet?
4. IKEA on a Sunday Afternoon
You know how IKEA has all those really delicious meatballs and ice cream cones so that couples can recuperate from their First Big Fight trying to Just Find An Effing Bed Already? Kittens should be included in that deal. If I had kittens and ice cream I would never fight with anyone ever again. You're welcome, IKEA.
5. Trader Joe's at 5:30 PM
I may feel like I'm suffocating because apparently the entire city of Washington, D.C. is in the same store as me and five different stressed-out moms just ran over my foot with their carts, but I'm suffocating AND watching a kitten try to gnaw on my hand with its tiny useless cat teeth. It's all good.
Images: Nicolas Suzor/Flickr; Giphy (5)
