BUCK'S BLOG
The Superior Species
Cats
are one of the most popular pets – but who owns who?
J.M. Buck
If there
really is such a thing a reincarnation, I can only hope that I
come back in my next life as a spoiled cat.
I share my
home with four of these demanding creatures. Each one has it’s
own distinct personality, but one thing all of them have in common
is that they all have me very well trained. Each morning, I fill
their food and water bowls, which I periodically check throughout
the day, replenishing them when they seem to be running low on
either. There is a cat door in my kitchen and they can come and
go as they please; yet if one of them wants in the front door,
I jump to open it at the first demanding meow. Then they usually
shortcut through the house and immediately go out the cat door
and back into the yard without the slightest hint of appreciation
of the fact that I just dropped what I was doing to slavishly
cater to their whims. Just tattoo “sucker” on my forehead.
Then there’s
the litter box. It’s not enough that, much to my chagrin,
they insist on using my garden for a toilet. All four also make
me scoop poop out of their box at least once a day, not to mention
having to get out the broom and dustpan to sweep up the kitty
litter spread all over the floor. It makes me wonder who is the
superior species. Really.
I can’t
catch mice or birds with my teeth and fingernails. Or even geckos,
for that matter.
I am totally
incapable of being able to derive utter elation from the simple
pleasure of batting a dead cockroach around the room for two hours.
I cannot
leap from a sitting position onto the top of something eight times
higher than myself.
And if I
were to spend all of my time perched on the top of a refrigerator
feeling smugly superior to all around me, I’m sure someone
would have me committed. But
it wouldn’t be my cats that would make the call to the mental
hospital. They would just think I had suddenly “gotten it,”
and rejoice. And if I were sullen enough while on top of the refrigerator,
those incorrigible beasts might even reward me with a dead rat,
or, if I had a really bad attitude, nice piece of fresh fish,
just to try to lure me out of my shell in hopes of making me revert
to my former slave status.
You see,
cats hate competition.
Maybe that’s
the biggest thing that sets us humans apart from felines. Where
humans seem to be very adept at continuous dissention amongst
their own species, cats know how to keep the peace. The cat knows
it’s place in the ranks, and it is fine with that. Felines
are masters of acceptance of what they cannot change. I watch
my cats romping together in the yard, bouncing in the living room,
using the stairs for a racetrack or just sleeping in the sun,
and I envy them. They know what they are, and they don’t
try to be anything else. They don’t know how to. Nor do
they care. They just know how to be happy.
And isn’t
that all that really matters?
