Things that my cat can do better than your cat: — My cat can sleep with one eye open longer than your cat. Merely lying on the daybed with one eye open doesn’t count; that’s just a cat being watchful. Conscious cats are always watchful. They have many enemies. Suppose a human sneezed within a three-room radius? They’d be so on top of that. The sneeze is a noise that predators make. Few people know that. But my cat can be dead asleep, totally zonked, and if you look closely, you can see that one eye open a slit. You know how some people call sleeping “40 winks”? They were talking about my cat. My cat can wink at you for hours and still be fast asleep. Should the sneeze monster arrive, my cat would be on guard. Perhaps a little slowly and stiffly, but on guard. — My cat can chase demons faster than your cat. My cat can chase a demon so rapidly that sometimes, sometimes, he crashes into a wall. That’s because demons can melt through walls. He knows that, but his enthusiasm for demon disposal is unbounded. If he has to sacrifice his body, so be it. Naturally, I am not aware of the demons. I do not have the special powers. But they must be real because why else would my cat be dashing from one end of the house to the other? Does he ever catch the demons? This is a hard question for a human to answer. Demons do not appear within the spectrum of our fallible eyes. They appear in the aural spectrum, of course, but humans usually ascribe these manifestations to the wind. My cat knows better. My cat knows where the agents of evil live, and he’s on them like brown on beans. — My cat can ignore food better than your cat. Probably your cat begins to whine at mealtime, begins to rub against your leg and purr at excess volume and maybe even do the running-to-the-food-bowl “Quick, Timmy, Grandpa is drowning in the creek” thing. My cat does that, too. And eventually I give in, because that is my role. But after I pour the kibble into the bowl, my cat takes one or two desultory bites and then asks to be let out. I think this is a dominance ritual. “I seem to need you because you are the great provider, but actually, I can take your food or leave it. Hah, I take a bite. See? One bite. I do not need you.” Later he sneaks back and chows down like a champ. His point is made, he thinks. But I am smarter than he is. — My cat is smarter than your cat. He is also, I now admit, smarter than I am. I suspect he is smarter than you. Of course, you know the times tables and the capital of France, and my cat doesn’t have a clue about that. But when dealing with me, my cat can get what he wants 100 percent of the time. If he were dealing with your cat, it is certain that he would want your cat to go away. He could make that happen. If your cat were particularly aggressive and wanted to defend some particular bit of territory, my cat would choose another bit of territory and defend that. He never loses; he just changes the rules. As for you: My cat understands quantum mechanics better than you do. Think not? Prove it. — My cat can hide better than your cat can. During the recent cold snap, we thought our cat was outside, and we called and we called and we called. No cat. We even walked up and down the sidewalk pleading, which is perfectly pathetic. No cat. We looked in all his favorite places inside as well. Well, as Tracy said, the cat has a fur coat and plenty of little hidey-holes to hunker down in. He’s going to be OK, and he has only himself to blame. (As if a cat ever blames himself for anything.) We closed up the house, including the cat door, as we had recently been taken advantage of by raccoons. At 3 in the morning, bounce! It’s the cat. He’s been asleep in some undisclosed location in our very house, and now he wants to snuggle to protect himself against the chill night air. Purr, purr, said the cat. We said, “Such a smart cat.” OK, no, we didn’t. The very many things my cat can do that your cat, alas, is not able to do. Poor cat. My Lord, when at their home, I did commend your highness’ letters to them, ere I was risen from the place that show’d my duty kneeling, come there a reeking post, stew’d in his jcarroll@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/08/DDQG1I4BKG.DTL
