I bet you didn’t know that this is a national holiday. It’s true, though. June 4 is National Hug Your Cat Day.

This is one of those simple, straightforward days, not a Hallmark Holiday frenzy like several other days of the year with which we are all very familiar.

Hug Your Cat Cay simply encourages cat owners everywhere to hug their cats. If you aren’t a cat owner, you can always borrow one for part of the day. The more dedicated cat owners don’t really need to be reminded to hug their cats, but–like many other things we take for granted–it never hurts to be nudged about our feline friends who are generally content just to cuddle up to give a little comfort and companionship to their owner.

If you have a cat like Maxine, my old lady feline roommate, you’ll never need to worry about hugging your cat. For someone who is 16 years old, she can leap into my lap faster than an ice cube melts in the sun on a 90 degree day. Somehow, she seems to know when I’m even thinking of sitting down and can be there right beside me in a flash, almost before I get settled. Maxine takes it as an open invitation to go for my lap whenever I eat at my table; if I don’t make it inviting for her, she stares unblinkingly at me from where she sits on the floor a foot from my chair. It’s not easy to eat even a bowl of cold cereal in that circumstance.

Maxine has it pretty easy living in my house, but she would have an even better life if I hadn’t grown up on a farm. Back in the day–especially when there was livestock on the farm–all animals lived outside. Even pets. There was plenty of space in the barn when they needed to get in, and we played with them there and outside, but no cats, kittens, dogs, or puppies were in the house. So it was a big step for me to get a house cat. I hope Maxine understands that I don’t fuss over her constantly.

I’m sure there are many more house cats who are pampered much more than mine. In 2017, I found, there were some 96.8 million pet cats in our country. Based on surveys, the estimate is that there are currently about 58 million stray cats in the U.S. As I figure it, that means there is about one cat for every four people on the planet.

So, even if you don’t have your own cat, now is the day to go borrow one to hug.