Why Are Cats, Even

Why the fuck are cats, anyway?

No, I don’t mean the movie based on the musical. I didn’t see that, and if you did, that’s a ‘you’ problem.

I just mean, like…cats. The animal. You know, soft and squishy but with a lot of sharp and pointy parts. Yells a lot. Chews on things. Loves you but also likes to pretend they’ve never met you before.

That’s the bitch.

There’s research to suggest that humans didn’t really domesticate cats the same way we did dogs. Humans looked at dogs and went, ‘I bet if I became best friends with that wolf over there we could do so many activities together. We’ll start with basics, like hunting, but I’m seeing endless possibilities here! Sheepherding, sniffing out truffles, turning a spit, and way off down the line, dance competitions. Also, there will be a TON of snuggling, and I’m not talking about the distant future, I’m talking NOW MOON MOON LET’S GO.”

Thirty thousand years or so later, humans had this agriculture thing down, but agriculture always meant a bunch of rats running around, eating crops and spreading disease. This bummed humans out, of course, but they didn’t really have a plan of attack. Then one day, cats showed up and were all, ‘Fuck you! We’re going to eat your rats and there’s NOTHING you can DO about it.’ And humans said, ‘yeah, fine, eat those things, we hate them.’ And the cats, who weren’t expecting their newest sworn enemies to just lay down and take it, were like, ‘Oh. Okay…Do you want to pet our bellies?’ And humans were all, ‘Do you WANT us to pet your bellies?’ And cats were like, ‘…no…’ And humans were all, ‘We’re kind of getting the feeling you want us to pet your bellies.’ And cats were like, ‘Oh, well, if you insist.’ The next thing the humans knew cats were in their barns and crops, eating the rats, and also in their homes, pretending they hated the humans while also sleeping directly on their faces, an honored tradition that continues to this day.

Yeah, humans love dogs, man’s best friend, whatever, but there’s this whole obsession with cats that doesn’t exist with dogs. Some of the first pictures ever taken are of cats, and cats make up 48% of the internet. I think it’s because cats make us work for it. Most dogs will be in absolute love with you at first sight. Cats make you earn that shit. You’ll be begging for any kind of attention at all, and then they rub up against your ankle for half a second and it’s like you just won the Affection Lottery.

The fact that we still have these tiny dumb jerks living with us even though a lot of them don’t even hunt rodents anymore is collective proof we’re all insane. They just sit in our apartments, taking up space. And money. Dear God the money we spend on them. Toys. Beds. Food. We’re paying for their food. The whole Goddamn reason they domesticated themselves was for free food and now we’re the ones paying for it. Oh, and then you end up with a cat that has insane food intolerances and needs to have the specialty high-protein, low carb diet like he’s some PTA mom who always wears a tennis outfit even when picking up her kids and is constantly drinking grass-green shakes, and that food is four times as expensive as the regular munchy-munch food and it’s already ridiculous we’re paying for that!

Then your other two cats (yes, because you have three. Three of the monsters, all because you had two and your husband had one and then you moved in together and now you’re outnumbered, like some kind of fuzzy version of The Brady Bunch) get old and their kidneys start failing and now that’s another kind of specialty food you’re buying. And then you can’t let the cats eat the wrong food, oh fucking no, can’t let that happen. Because if the one with the tender tummy eats the kidney food he’ll throw up and have bloody poops and if the older cats eat anything but their kidney diet, their stupid kitty kidneys will fail faster. So you buy these special bowls that only open for a specific cat, and they’re not cheap, and you have to buy three of them because – and I cannot stress this enough – you and your husband have willingly outnumbered yourselves with cats.

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Yeah, you could just not do any of that. But you do it. Because you still love the stupid fuckers. They’re not just your pets. They’re your family. I mean, you are definitely not the kind of person who’s going to go get a bumper sticker that says ‘I love my furbaby’ with a picture of a cat or something crazy like that. You don’t even like it when the people at the vet call you Mama. They’re not your children. The thing about children is they eventually grow up and learn how to talk. The cats aren’t going to learn how to talk. They know how to scream, but that’s about as good as it gets. But you still love them and want what’s best for them and still absolutely panic if something happens to them.

Cats also have a reputation for being smart, which is laughably false. The entire reason I’m ranting about cats this week is because last weekend I ended up taking my one cat, Louis (pronounced Louie because she’s French), to the emergency vet because she ate yarn. She had to have her entire abdomen cut open so the vet could remove a fucking foot and a half of yarn.

A. Foot. And. A. Half.

They had to send her home after a day of recovery because she was such a bitch she wouldn’t even let the vet techs take vitals. And then she wouldn’t eat, so we brought her back. I swear to God I had to confiscate a shiv from her before we went in. Turns out narcotics make her nauseous. She could have just fucking told me that. Do you know how much I cried? Over this stupid little rat-catcher who can’t stop shoving non-food items into her face like she’s got pica? I fucking found her trying to eat the ties on her cone of shame. She has learned nothing.

In conclusion, cats are stupid and I love their stupid faces and fat bodies.

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