Hugginess Protocol

Yesterday, before driving to visit family for Christmas break, we had to do something with the cats. Normally, we just leave them outside and just pick up some new cats when we get back, but we do like this bunch, even if one of them is so lacking in fine motor skill development that his aim for the litterbox can be off by as much as 200 feet. Not trusting them alone, we decided to drop them off at a place I shall call the "Inn of Feline Slumber." It is a nice set-up--$22 a night for the two cats, and they get their own room, a seat, and this thing with a hole in it. Later correction: according to my wife, the thing with a hole in it is called a "Heidi box," or maybe she meant "Hidey box." The lady working there didn't hurry us out the door, so we spent a couple of minutes validating the cats with various phrases that would be condescending to a human--"you're such a brave little boy for not hiding in the thing with a hole in it," "don't worry, everything will be all right, even if you won't see your foster mommy and daddy for several weeks, which is about a billion in cat years," etc. Then the woman working there said all such of validating things to us--they'll take care of the kitties, they'll give them a little toy mousie to play with to make up for their pain and sense of rejection, etc. But what threw me for a loop was that she hugged my wife, and then she hugged me. This is a woman I have never before seen in my life, and who my wife has seen (at most) on two previous occasions.

I suppose this has made me ponder hugginess protocol. I have googled the phrase "hugginess protocol," and found no hits. Yes, there are a number 0f hits for "hugging protocol," but "hugginess protocol" is different. That is, "hugging protocol" is about certain objective norms for all people, the "average Joe" huggers, who are placed in certain social settings in which they must choose to hug or not to hug. "Hugginess protocol" is about, given that someone already has a certain propensity toward hugging (e.g. someone she just met who has not performed any particularly endearing action, such as saving her baby from a burning building), what are the situations in which this person consumed by the personality traits of hugginess determines that hugging is unwarranted? For instance, if we had not said encouraging things to the kitties about being brave boys or manifested positive affection toward them, would she still have hugged us? If we had not simply omitted to say positive things, but said negative things--if we told the cats, "Bwah hah hah, you're all gonna die!" would she still have hugged us? If we had remembered to bring our own toys from home to show the cats we really cared, during the hug, would this woman I never met before have collapsed on our shoulders and sobbed, "You are both such beautiful people, the world is not worthy of you?"