Why name a critter that has no useful purpose?
(My apologies. This is a repeat from 2014, because, well, I had something important come up for the time I had reserved for composing something new. And besides, my cat says I don't write enought about him. At least now may he'll think I'm listening.) The cat that lives at our house does nothing. No, wait, less than nothing. Is there a word for that? Sub-nothing? Minus-nothing? Absolute nothing?
The cat that lives at our house is gray, and black, with a little brown. It has the typical four legs, standard-issue ears and tail, and hair that sticks to your tongue, and your dress slacks, even though I can't think of any two surfaces that are less alike than that. It meows, sneezes, and purrs. Sometimes, all at once.
The cat that lives at our house really isn't ours at all. It belongs to my niece, who either had to find a place for it to reside temporarily until she secures a place that accepts pets, as she said, or who believes the critter is possessed by Satan himself and figured it would therefore feel sort of at home with me and my son. Either way, it lives with us now. Or we live with it. Hmm, hadn't thought of it that way until now.
The cat that lives at our house does two things well. The first is manufacture litterbox filler. How a 1.5-pound bag of Purina Special Recipe can become three pounds of product escapes my mathematical prowess, although most of my homework after the fourth grade did, too. The other thing the cat that lives at our house does well is a skill felines have perfected over the course of hundreds of generations of evolution, and that, of course, is sleep. Day, night, morning, afternoon, when it's quiet, while the TV is on, on your lap, on the bed, in the sunshiny spot on the floor, and especially on the couch, this cat snoozes, naps, rests, sleeps, dozes, slumbers, and snores. Yeah, that's right, cat apnea. Just my luck.
The cat that lives at our house does not have a name. It arrived as simply Fat Cat, a tag my niece gave him because of his obviously ample girth. Me and my son, in the four months since he arrived, have just referred to him as 'the cat,' which either makes us the most uncreative people since the guy who invented vanilla ice cream, or suggests that 'the cat' has no specific traits that lend themselves to a name. He doesn't have white legs, so we can't call him 'Boots,' he's not striped, so 'Tiger' is out, and 'Whiskers' would be only slightly less unimaginative than 'Razor-Clawed Destruction Pussy.' Just maybe it's best that a cat that has no meaningful purpose, should have no name. Kitty karma, so to speak.
The cat that lives at our house has a mortal enemy -- the tiny spot of red light that emanates from the laser flashlight that we keep on the coffee table so it's handy when we want to torture him. He can be lying on the floor, minding his own business, his eyes half closed (or half open, you know, depending on your outlook), and when we glance the red dot across the tan carpet, he jolts into action like a sprinter who's just heard the starter's pistol go off. The cat will spin circles, race down the hallway, half-climb the walls and maybe even launch himself down the basement stairwell (ooohhh, haven't tried that one yet) to get that crimson point of light, as if he's decided what he'll do with it if he ever catches up. Me and my son chortle with glee every time we put the cat through the paces, the feline mindlessly pursuing some bit of light energy he can never have, the dudes on the other end entertaining themselves by messing with a creature with a brain as big as a golf ball. No, we're not proud of it, but dang, it's funny.
The cat that lives at our house has bad breath. OK, so he eats ground-up and baked beef and lamb pieces that fell on the slaughterhouse floor, we get that, but that doesn't mean he has to gas our faces with it. The cat has the habit of snuggling on our laps in the evening, always face to face, as close as he can nudge. It's precious, really, he curls up and flexes his claws gently on our chests, purring like a tiny motor is running somewhere inside. But then, just as you're thinking how cute this all is, he yawns widely, the partially digested ruminants in his kitty belly emitting an odor somewhere between a decomposing hamster carcass and the sludge at the bottom of the Chernobyl holding ponds. He doesn't seem to care.
The cat that lives at our house is clever. He never gets overtly into mischief, but you know it's going on. Most nights in our house, I'm the last to retire, and as I snap off the living room light, he throws me the most sincere I-don'tcare- if-I-ever-see-you-again gaze that you can imagine. I pad off to bed, climb in, turn out the lights. And wait. Almost without exception, in a few minutes, I'll hear him through the wall separating my room from the kitchen. If there's a pan on the stove, I'll hear it move, just a bit. Two glasses will clink. A fork dings on a plate. And then, his exploratory mission accomplished, I hear the familiar thud of 15 pounds of pussycat hitting the kitchen floor. He thinks he's gotten away with it. He doesn't know that I know. Or just maybe, he knows that I don't know that he knows. I told you he was clever.
The cat that lives at our house is not a dog. I make that distinction because I've always considered myself more of a dog dude than the friend of a feline. A dog, after all, will hunt with you, he'll protect you, he'll pull a wagon for you if you show him how, he'll roll over when you snap your fingers, he'll run straight to the car if you say in your best silly stupid dog voice 'Rover wanna go for a ride?' A cat, meanwhile, will do nothing useful for you, doesn't care that you think it should, and might even scratch you across the face if you try to stuff it into a boot just because you think it would make a cute photo (hint: don't try that).
The cat that lives at our house will be staying a while, the way it looks. He's a nameless, useless, stench-breathed, lazy, destructive collection of claws and fur put on this planet to turn protein into poop, yet somehow, he's found a way to make it work. He has a warm home, lots of food, and two bozos trained to entertain him (if they'd just put that crazy red light away).
Hey, I told you he was clever.
