During the reign of Cat
Queen Heather I formed a habit of posting about cats with some reference to
#TortieTuesday. Bisquit, however, was not a Tortie. She was biscuit-colored, mostly
creamy white with pale orange-tan patches on top. I spelled her name with a Q
to distinguish her from an earlier cat called Biscuit, and because she was
pale-colored and gender-confused as a kitten (a Bisque-colored It), and because
she did things she was told to quit, just for attention. She died during a
glyphosate poisoning episode, shortly after Heather was born.
Bisquit hissed and spat
at me twice before she decided she wanted to be a pet. I loved Bisquit from the
moment I saw her. I couldn’t show her how much I loved her, though, because she
suffered from the Deadly Sin of Envy. If anyone failed to make it clear that
they were petting another cat first and
most, Bisquit became jealous of that
human and would not allow “her” human to pet other cats. She lost her favorite
brother when they were four months old and spent the next four years seeming
to want to be someone’s Favorite Cat.
In any other household Bisquit would have been a fabulous once-in-a-lifetime
pet. In my household, to her obvious regret, she was part of a family of social
cats who were even more fabulous. She seemed much happier after bonding with a daughter who became a permanent resident, but she never quite overcame her tendency to jealous envy.
Bisquit always had a
lot to say. Unlike several of her relatives, including her five-week-old great-great-grandkitten Serena, Bisquit did all the talking. Here is what I understood her to say.
The Purposes of Life:
1. To be a great
hunter. Life is hunting. Leisure is hunting things you don’t want to eat.
Status is being a better hunter than others. Death is being unable to hunt any
more.
2. To eat and drink
enough, and sleep in the sun. There is no such thing as too much hunting or too
much snoozing. There is only not enough of one of those things if you give more
attention to the other. It is, however, possible to eat too much. Apart from
the unavoidable damage done by pregnancy, a thin shape is preferable to a fat
shape.
3. To be adored. If you
have a choice, it is better to be adored by the better hunters, since a better
hunter is a more desirable person of any species. Therefore Adayahi is more
desirable than Priscilla. However, all adoration should be eagerly lapped up.
4. To be beautiful.
When not being actively adored by others, from time to time you should gaze
into a patch of glass or water and contemplate Beauty.
5. To have beautiful
kittens. Your own kittens eat before you do. Other kittens eat after. All
kittens are, however, worth nurturing.
How to Spend the Day:
1. Hunt rabbits for
most of the night.
2. Get tired. Snack on
a sick bird. This gives you the energy to walk home and rest on some object
that belongs to a human.
3. Exert your dominion
over the humans by spitting bits of sick bird all over their object. They will
make discontented noises and rub nasty chemicals over the object, but they want to know that that moldy old bird is
the reason why you’re not feeling as perky as possible. By that time, of
course, they will have served breakfast to your relatives. After eating your
own share and, if possible, someone else’s, you will feel much better. The
human will be relieved to see that you’re not sicker, and there is a chance
that you will be petted. They make noises like “When will you ever learn?”
Human noises have little meaning.
4. Meow whenever a
human is present. They soon learn to distinguish the Meow of Active Distress
from the Existential Meow, which basically means “You could be doing more to
show adoration of me.”
a. If they have not
recently offered you kibble, meow for kibble.
b. If they have, meow
because it could have been fresher kibble.
c. If it was fresh
kibble, meow because it wasn’t fish.
d. If it was tuna, meow
because it wasn’t salmon.
e. If it was salmon,
eat it up fast before someone else does, then meow because you’ve eaten too
much too fast.
f. If it was food,
anyway, and you’ve finished eating it, meow because the human is not petting
you.
g. If the human is
petting you, meow because it’s not sitting down, holding you on its knees, and
rubbing behind your ears.
h. If the human is
finishing its meal, meow because you’re too full to help eat the human’s meal.
No useful purpose is served by purring before everything that can possibly be accomplished by a meow has been
accomplished.
5. Chastise any of your
friends and relations who try to alienate the affections of a human who had
been adoring you. You love the other cats, but you are entitled to the kind of attention Priscilla shows your uncle Mackerel and
your sister Mogwai. Why not you? It couldn’t
be anything you do! You are perfect, even if not quite as good a hunter as Mac or
Mogwai. It is your perfect right to slap any other cat who unethically tries to
alienate the affections of a human who was beginning to appreciate you, even if the human makes
discontented noises when you slap other cats.
6. After breakfast,
groom fur and snooze in sun.
7. Nag for a human to
sit down and groom your fur all over again. Humans can reach those difficult
spots, but the important thing is for your relatives, especially Mogwai, to see
that you made the human sit down and
fuss over you. If the target human is
preoccupied with some silly human game like gardening, bringing in groceries,
or moving furniture, meow loudly as you run under its feet, push things over,
and hook claws into its knees. Eventually it will stop trying to walk past you.
Even and especially if this is because it is clumsy old Oogesti lying under a broken
piece of furniture, go to it at once. Purr and cuddle. There is no such thing
as too much adoration.
8. If allowed to purr
and cuddle, immediately notify everyone, especially Mogwai, that you have
finally been accepted as the Ruling Queen and Favorite Cat. This may not be
precisely true, since all of them seem to prefer one or more of your relatives,
but sometimes we have to fake it until we make it. Do not, in any case, hurt a
relative, or say anything for which you can’t be forgiven the next time they
need you as part of a hunting party. Just lord it over them.
9. Always check all the
neighbors’ traps, especially squirrel traps, even though they're a snug fit for a full-grown cat. Humans think it’s cute if a cat likes nuts. Eventually
they will release you from the trap. Lap up their adoration, expressed in sounds like, “I must have trapped that wretched cat a hundred times.” (It’s the 139th
time, actually. They can’t count.) Know that, if the owner of a trap fails to
release you, at least Priscilla will be worrying about you, wandering up and
down the road calling your name, while you are warm, dry, and looking forward to some extra adoration.
10. Nature has not provided
anyone but you, your Beloved Mate, and your Adorable Kittens with
biscuit-colored fur. This is because life is not fair. Try to correct nature’s shortcomings.
Be generous. Coat everything, especially food, with your surplus hair.
Everything looks better with biscuit-colored fur on it.
11. Observe what other
people do. See if you can act out what they have done and report it to
Priscilla. This usually leads to some form of entertainment, which may involve
food, trophies for you to play with, or yelling and human drama. At least your humans know that anyone who says “That
cat couldn’t possibly know” is guilty. Be the first to report how a hunter
trespassed to shoot a deer out of season, how Mac charged at a big coy-dog to protect you, or how
the Neighbor Kids sneaked into the shed. Point out clues, too, like a
shed human hair or dropped cigarette end. Lilian Jackson Braun’s fictional cats
were nothing beside you.
12. Lose no opportunity
to type on Priscilla’s computer. Your typing looks just like hers, so one day
the humans will admit they can read your messages as easily as their own. What
difference could there be between “reurueiu” and “Buy salmon”?
13. Read books, too.
You always see humans doing it, so there must be something useful inside books.
Possibly crickets. Anyway, when you have pushed a book off the Moldy Books
Shelf in the shed, a human who sees you open the book and paw through it will unmistakably
express adoration every time. That humans can speak is the sort of thought that would occur to Mogwai's damaged brain--what would they say?--but there is no mistaking “I wish I had a picture of
this” for their usual “Stop that” noises.
14. Sitting or lying
down are ways humans communicate that they would like for you to perch on their
chests, turn slowly around flicking your tail across their faces, and talk to
them. All normal humans adore this behavior. If they’re preoccupied with silly
human games like plumbing, wiring, or changing motor oil, letting a claw stick
out while you massage the target human’s neck tends to take their minds off
their worries. Humans are not good at expressing gratitude, which can come out
like “Yeeoww! Get this dang cat off me!”, but they need this treatment. Without it, they might forget that the truck does not belong in the driveway. Its purpose is to deliver food and go away.
15. When about to be shaken,
scolded, and/or thrown out of some place you have spent considerable time and
trouble getting into, always purr and cuddle. They expect you to put out your
claws, so your affectionate response will completely bowl them over. Often they’ll
end up petting you instead, even while others are bathing their burns or
scratches and gathering up pieces of smashed furniture.
16. Always keep trying
to talk to humans. Probably the closest they’ll ever get to understanding words
is that, when you have told some story that shows up how much nicer and
cleverer you are than other people, they’ll say “Little Bic-bic!” and rub behind
your ears. Actually that’s close enough.
The Final Yowl
No matter how adorable
you are and always have been, the humans will always adore other cats more than
they do you. You will never be Magic. Nor Mac. Nor Dusty. Nor Buster. Nor
Steelgray. Nor Mogwai. Nor Graybelle. Nor Pippi. Nor Biko. Nor Bootsie. Nor
Beau. And, since most of those other cats lived before your time, you can’t
even yowl at them for alienating the humans’ affection from you, the rightful
object of all cat-adoration.
And when your
grandkittens come along—adorable as they and their mother are—why do they get to live indoors? Just because
you never wanted to be indoors, that’s supposed to make it fair that they get
to spend more time closer to the humans, alienating their affections? Meow. Meow!
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