The Day the Cats Crept In
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Animals matter far more than humans in my humble opinion – I’ve started to use ‘humble’ more and more as I’m clearly a humble person really. After all animals haven’t fucked up the planet or invented nuclear bombs or polluted everywhere they went – well, I suppose shitting all over the place rather than into a lavatory isn’t great but that’s animals for you eh?
Now cats have become, rather by default, something of a ‘thing’ for me. I didn’t mean to write ‘thing’ but I can’t remember the word I wanted as it’s a bit late over here in Blighty and I’m a bit tired.
I say ‘default’ as some thirty odd years ago I told the wifey I wanted to get a dog. On my return home she’d got two kittens. I complained that they were clearly not dogs and her arguments that they were, like dogs, furry, fell on deaf ears and I rightly pointed out that they didn’t bark.
Cats do a lot of things that dogs do mind you. They sniff each others asses for one thing. What is it with animals sniffing each others asses? Maybe it is, at times, better to be human after all. I mean to say, the woman a few doors down as an ass that almost causes an eclipse when she bends down. If humans sniffed asses I’d overdose on her.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Cats.
We’ve had so many cats over the last thirty years that our garden was starting to outdo Stephen Kings ‘Pet Cemetary’ albeit he spelt it ‘semetary’ for some reason unknown to me.
“Do you like the garden?” I often thought I’d ask any potential purchaser of our house if we moved, “You do? Good! Please don’t ever dig any of it up!”
I eventually convinced the wifey that, in order to have any garden left that didn’t have a deceased cat under it we should start getting them cremated. I was very relieved when she agreed but less so when she insisted that I scattered the ashes regardless of the prevailing weather conditions and, on several breezy days, I found myself inadvertently swallowing some dusty bits of a much loved late cat.
Personally I’m an ‘animal person’ without prejudice against any particular type. I struggle to understand anyone who says “I’m a dog person” or “I’m a cat person” or, and I have had this said to me bizarrely, “I’m a Gerbil person”.
As fate would have it – or, rather, as the wifey would have it which amounts to the same thing really – I have had the delight and pleasure of having a variety of cats living with us ranging from the loving and friendly to the outrageously demented.
Hissing Sid, for example, hated everyone and everything except, oddly, me. I always assumed that he thought ‘Someone has to feed me so I’ll leave the stupid one alone and hiss and attack everyone else’ or something like that.
Princess Puffball was pure white and blind as a bat. She was fine as long as we didn’t move any furniture. If we did she would ricochet around the living room like a demented furry ping pong ball.
These days ‘my boy’ is Stealthy The Stealth Bomber – so called as, in his youth he would sneak up on anything alive in the garden – including leaves which he clearly believed to be alive – and catch them. Nothing escaped his stalking ability hence The Stealth Bomber.
He sleeps under the quilt nestling against my ample beer filled belly and purrs me to sleep.
He’s getting on now. Nearly 18 years old. A good age for a cat. Well, we estimate his years. He’s been with us for almost 16 years and he was a stray who wandered through our cat flap in a bit of a mess. He had to be at least a couple of years old then so he could be more than 18 I suppose. I hate to contemplate him not being here one day but, I know, it will happen.
I’ll do my best not to swallow too much of him when the time comes. Perhaps it won’t be a breezy day.
Strange really. Well it is to me. Some humans couldn’t care less about animals at all. Some humans only care about certain animals. Some humans actively hate cats – I’ve met a few who do. Weird things are humans.
It isn’t our world you know. We are supposed to share it. There are more insects on earth than humans and yet we treat our world as if it’s ours to do with as we please.
I’ve started watching a show called ‘Zoo’ were the animals start taking over. They lose their fear of humanity. It is, of course, fiction.
If it ever became fact it would be no less than we deserve.
If you are a ‘dog person’ or a ‘cat person’ or even a ‘gerbil person’ then stop being so bloody stupid and become an ‘animal person’.
They matter more than we do and if we actually survive long enough we might even learn that one day – unless we’ve wiped them all out and our stupid selves too.
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Dogs are pets, loyal, supportive, faithful and loving.
Cats, on the other hand, are roommates. Independent, occasionally annoying and often downright bossy.
Thankfully dogs will love you unconditionally. Cats, however, need to be wooed. You must earn their love.
Birds (yes, we have birds, too), my cats have informed me, are simply food.
LOL. You know your cats Bob. Always nice to see you here.
We don’t live here because the bank lent us money years ago to buy the place. We live here because our cats allow us to – as long as we feed them, empty the litter tray, clear up hair balls and don’t mind the odd deceased creature being brought in – nor the odd live creature come to that.
I’ve found a live Black bird huddled behind the toilet – I wondered why several cats had ‘red dots’ on their noses. Every time they tried to get at the black bird it pecked them on the nose.
I rescued it – no injuries at all – and went into the garden. It sat in my hands refusing to fly.
I inspected it’s wings and all ok.
Eventually I started to flap my right arm as it sat in my left hand by way of explaining to it what it should be doing.
My next door neighbour saw me no doubt telling his wife Mad Bamforth was at it again.
Eventually it got the message and flew off – circling my head twice. I wondered if by way of ‘Thanks mate’?
Probably not. Still, as a cat came up the garden at that moment it actually shat on the cats back. Classic!!! 🙂