AAACK! Cathy, my comic strip alter-ego from my early career days, left a few Sundays ago. Cathy Guisewite ended the almost 35 year run of the perpetually guilt-ridden, chocoholic, working woman who spent entirely too much time worrying about fashion and Irving.

My history with Cathy is bittersweet. I remember her early introduction and how I felt I had a sister in the funny pages, the comics version of Mary Richards (or maybe Rhoda). She was a cohort in the world of working singles who worried about bathing suits and soothed bruised egos from work with wine and chocolate like me.

One of my favorite memories was going to Neiman Marcus with my best friend Diane Borowski to actually meet Cathy G. I was not much of a groupie but really got excited to get to chat with Cathy, probably thinking the 3 of us would walk out of the store, arm in arm, throwing our hats into the air to the tune of “That Girl”. Instead Diane and I got into a bit of a “discussion” of which one of us was Cathy. We both thought we were perfect replicas of her – I even had long straight hair and occasionally wore a heart on my sweater. Diane’s hair had way too much curl. But Diane fought that I was the ultimate Andrea. She was right, but it took me a few years to figure that out.

In the meantime, Cathy G. pleasantly gave us autographs with little Cathy drawings but hardly turned into our best friends. I toned down my expectations about celebrities after that.

I also toned down my appreciation and interest in Cathy, the cartoon. I went off and had a fabulous life. Cathy was still standing in the dressing room trying on ridiculous clothes on an ever-ballooning body. AAACK! Why can’t the salespeople do their job and dress her in age-appropriate clothes! And, sadly, she’d gotten as boring as Irving. Ladies, would we ever stay in a relationship with such an insensitive techno-geek that has no interest in anything but his toys? AAACK! Why didn’t she give him an ultimatum to get a personality or she’d take his dog, Vivian (and possibly the most normal and likable character in the comic strip), and Electra and move out?

Cathy as a character would never achieve anything meaningful in her life. Her shtick was about her neuroses, weaknesses and guilt. Maybe that was fine when we were all young, silly and still had an ocean of time and fun ahead of us. But she didn’t age gracefully. She grew into a caricature of complacency with no dreams or plans of achieving anything meaningful in her life.

Her final strip was simply insulting. Having a baby? Wouldn’t she be about 58 years old? Just too saccharine for my taste.

Saying “so long” to Cathy was like saying good-bye to an old friend who we outgrew. We shared some laughs over coffee. We savored some good one-liners enough to keep in our wallets for a few years. But we got over skimpy bathing suits and bad dates and moved on to careers and self-esteem. Sorry, Cathy! Call me if you ever get back to town. I’ll give you the name of a great hair stylist.

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