So the dumb cat came wandering down the stairs and into my office the other day. And I said, right out loud, before I could even stop myself, “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”
She didn’t even snicker, on account of the fact Chicklet the cat isn’t as easily amused as I am.
“You are quite a cool cat,” I said to her as she jumped up on her favourite chair beside my desk in my office and grinned at me like the Cheshire Cat.
Then, lest she be misconstrued as anything less than the privileged princess cat queen of the universe, she completely ignored me, peddled the cushion and executed several 360s before settling down for a nice cat nap.
She looked like the cat that ate the canary; she purred like the cat that got the cream. Our fat cat always knows she’s the cat’s meow in this house.
It could be the expensive cat food, the crooked but usable cat door (which she is always on the wrong side of), and the fact that she gets lovingly brushed about three times a day (not by me).
Our chubby cat is “never rubbed the wrong way.” (I ask you: how many stinking cat expressions are there?)
So since we rescued this oversized fuzzball feline a couple of winters ago, our house has been categorically calico.
Diluted calico, I should say, which is, and I quote: “A cat colour that could be described as a white cat that decided to play around in watercolour paints …”
OK, so she is sort of beautiful, but I’m doggedly a dog person, and now, since we have been dog-less nigh on three summers, I somehow now know all about calico and catnip, scratch posts and litter boxes. And I was stone-cold positive I didn’t even like cats.
Thing is, it’s cat crazy out there. If a robber is stealthy, he’s a cat burglar; if something is really complicated, it’s a cat’s cradle; a hellcat is a wild woman and a fat cat is a rich guy.
If somebody is pussyfooting around, they are a scaredy-cat, which of course, makes them as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
And if you are playing cat and mouse, don’t have a kitten, because there’s more than one way to skin a cat, but just remember to never put the cat among the pigeons, because when the cat’s away, the mice will play.
You all know that a cat has nine lives, but curiosity killed the cat. Maybe it was fighting like cats and dogs while it was raining cats and dogs. Maybe somebody let the cat out of the bag and the cat ended up like a cat on a hot tin roof.
Has the cat got your tongue? Is your life getting to be like herding cats? Is there no room to swing a cat?
I mean, what’s the deal with all the cat catechisms? After three hours of research (three minutes on Wikipedia and two hours and 57 minutes watching YouTube cats playing pianos and being terrified by cucumbers), I discovered that cats are more popular pets than dogs.
Thirty-seven per cent of Canadian households own one or more cats, while 32 per cent own dogs, and there are 600 million cats in the world right now. That’s 7.9 million cats in Canada alone.
So I have to wonder: how did we manage to get the best one in the world? Because, as Chicklet would totally agree, and by now I have to admit, she is the cat’s pajamas.
Harley Hay is a Red Deer writer and filmmaker.
