The venerable old fellow! With a name like Satan it is proof that only the
good die young, as the song says. :-)

I just adore shop cats, and apparently so does Buffalo. There is a historic
cider mill that had a handsome fellow whose name, I think, was Charlie. He
turned up missing and the whole village (Williamsville, NY, just a few miles
outside Buffalo) put up signs and kept their eyes peeled; he was found hale
and hearty after the mill was sold to a farming collective, and is now in a
fine suburban home. And no one who ever loved perfume can forget Malibu, the
mascot of an old-fashioned drugstore whose claim to fame was its selection of
hundreds of hard-to-find fragrances (in the days before Sephora and
Perfumania.) People drove from Canada to see this friendly and very rotund
calico, who looked like a white-and-patch basketball with a tail.

One of my favorites was a handsome young fella named Buster. He was Shop Cat
General of a PetWise store around the corner. The PetWise chain was bought
out by PetSmart I think, and the smaller store ended up closing; there was a
nearby PetSmart to absorb the business. But people in Amherst fought over
that cat and were even trying to bribe the soon-to-be ex-owners of the shop.
In the end I heard they worked through a local no-kill shelter and found the
erstwhile mascot a new slave.
When the shop closed, they did not put up a thanks-for-your-business sign;
they got huge cling-to-glass letters that covered the whole window with
"BUSTER HAS A HOME!!!" and they remained there for many months until a
chiropractor moved in.

Blessed be,
Baha

Ooo, he sounds *so* evil! :)

That's the point of shop cats, from a business owner's perspective.
That's one way I really don't mind being manipulated. :)

Joyce

How cute!  In the rare cases that I've met shop cats, they were very
calm, mature cats like Satan, who lay around quietly like they're on
display.  That way, they don't get underfoot, break things, run out
the door into the parking lot, etc.  A hoolikitten shopcat would be a
handful, but so fun.  Imagine all the toys, treats, and small pets on
the shelves she must be tempted by!