By Jim Hagarty
1992
There are people around who honestly believe society began to unravel the day the lowly cat was first allowed to enter a home and take up residence. Things have never been right since, such people would say. And I might, on certain days, tend to agree with them, especially as two of the creatures have made their way into my home and seem intent at times on driving me out of it.
There are others, of course, who believe cats are slightly more evolved than human beings and deserve more respect than we do. These people think of cats as little gods to be worshipped and obeyed.
Oh well. Whatever floats your boat, as the expression goes.
But like cats or hate them, we are rarely indifferent to them. Except when cat owners get to talking about their cats. It is then we want to find the nearest exit and run screaming through it as from a burning building.
Non cat owners, especially, are almost genetically incapable of finding anything of interest in tales of the latest exploits of their neighbour’s cat. To them, a 10-minute story about how Buttercup got his toy mouse down from the shelf all by himself is just slightly less interesting than a scientific description about how it is that paint sticks to surfaces it is applied to.
That is why cat owners, if they have to regale others with hilarious anecdotes about what amazing thing Whiskers did today, ought to confine their storytelling to other cat owners only. The chances of being physically assaulted halfway through yet another telling of the time Princess drank out of the toilet bowl are greatly reduced if the listeners are people who have cat-toilet stories of their own to relate.
But there is probably nothing more sad than cat owners in a group, sharing stories about their animals. Not because they all find these tales interesting enough to tell and to listen to, but because normally truthful people, confronted with stories about other cats all truly more incredible than theirs, will take to the most outright embellishing of data when it comes their turn. Fishermen practise fish tales only to learn how to tell good cat stories.
An average cat owners’ conversation:
“You wouldn’t believe it,” says Owner A. “When I got home, Tuffy was standing beside a cupboard door he had opened, actually pointing to a can of his food.”
“No kidding?” says Owner B. “Did I tell you about Mopples and the microwave? Well, when I went out to the kitchen this morning …”
It pretty much goes downhill after that and you don’t want to know how it ends. Of course, what a coincidence that the owners of the two most amazing cats in the world would run into each other like that.
Fortunately for me, my cats never do anything much to brag about. There was that time they remembered my birthday, but I still think that was just blind luck on their part.
They don’t even know their days of the week that well yet.
