Some Catty Remarks

I wrote a great (in my estimation, anyway) post and my computer froze, aughhhhh, so here we go again. I think that my workplace needs to invest in getting better computers. These archaic dinosaurs just can't keep up.

My cats decided that last night was a good time to chase each other through the house, and at 3 a.m., they were still going strong; although the older cat was rather irritated at this point, and the sound of cats bounding through the house was punctuated with low growls and angry hisses. Being that cats apparently have small brains (and are therefore amused easily), this went on for some time before they got tired of it.

So this morning, when I reluctantly pulled myself out of bed and got ready for work, I wondered just why it was that I had cats. I certainly didn't inherit a love of cats from either of my parents, especially my father. I wouldn't say my dad hated cats, but... they don't seem to fancy each other all the time.

At least that was the case growing up; my cats seemed to have a life ambition to make my dad miserable. When my dad used to make his lunch for work, the cat used to hide in the kitchen, and as soon as he finished making the sandwhich, the cat would leap out of her hiding place, steal the sandwhich, and take off down the hallway in a blur of fur, claws, and mangled sandwhich. The cat would run to MY room, hide under the bed and crouch protectively over the sandwhich, yellow eyes glaring defiantly in the dark, as she gave a low warning growl that would slowly crescend a testy meowwwwwwwwww, sort of like an air raid siren. Why Dad would try to retrieve the sandwhich, I dont' really know, because he had no desire to eat it. Perhaps it was just a battle of wills; he couldn't be outsmarted by a cat.

But if Dad figured out ways to prevent the cat from stealing his lunch, there were other things the cats would do. One such incident was particularly memorable. It was a very hot summer day, and my Dad had to mow the lawn, so he headed towards the closet to put his mowing shoes on. The mowing shoes were a pair of hopelessly outdated, worn out shoes that Mom thought belonged in the garbage, but my father insisted that they were still useable and rescued them from the trash. Mom gave up, and Dad got to keep his shoes. Not if the cats had anything to do with it...

We were watching our Saturday morning cartoons, and dad went to the closet, whistling cheerfully, and absentmindedly stuck his foot in the shoe. The cheerful whistling stopped abrubtly, and became a heated mixture of some words that I can't repeat. Cartoons forgotten, our attention was immediately captured by this much funnier episode, happening right in our own living room. Dad's face turned several shades of red, and he wrenched his shoe (and sock) off and marched toward the garbage, yelling, "WHERE IS THAT @$#! CAT?!!!"

This recieved no answer, and the cats, of course, where nowhere to be seen, and stayed that way for the rest of the day (and the next day after). Apparantly, one of them had left a little *present* in my dad's shoe. He lost two battles that day; one to my mom, for the shoes went in the trash, and one to the cat, who I'm sure was somewhere, purring with mirth over my dad's unpleasant discovery.

And yet, after all that, my father still allowed me to have pets, despite the fact that they wreck furntiture, eat your plants, break things, climb on the counter at night and discover how to open food containers... and the list goes on and on. For those of you who own cats, I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about.

But for all the trouble cats are, what would we do without them? Um... my dad might be able to give some very good answers; perhaps I shouldn't ask that.