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Chip Brown.

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Whole Ball of Yarn

Normally, I find most of my articles revolve around people I interact with at grocery stores and the mall. As you all know, I'm a huge people watcher. Well, last week my wife was on vacation and I never left the house. Sure, I caught up on all my house cleaning and talk show TV watching, but I had withdrawl from my habit of people watching.

I sat there all week watching my wife. Maybe I could write an article about that, but I don't think you all want to hear about my wife yelling at me for not picking up my dirty clothes. Well, maybe you do, but I don't want to talk about it.

No, without people to watch I decided I would observe my cat for a week. Like a government paid scientist studying the mating habits of butterflies, I followed my cat around for the week, watching what he does in a day's time. I learned two things about cats this week. 1) When they hiss and lay their ears back, cuddling is not on their mind. 2) I know less about cats than I do about people.

Much has been said about the superiority of the intelligence of dogs over cats. Dogs chase balls, cats chase string. I guess the dog is a bit braver, in that the ball can be dangerous. I got hit in the nose with a baseball once and it really hurt. I can say with no hesitation I have never been injured by a piece of string.

As I pulled my string across the floor with my cat in hot pursuit, I began to wonder, "Why is he chasing this piece of string?" What does he think it is? What cat instinct is reacting to the lure of a piece of string? I surmised that he must believe that the orange piece of yarn is a mouse's tail. As he tried to drag the string out from under the blanket, I began to wonder just what sort of mouse has a three foot orange tail? So, while the dog may be by some considered braver, for chasing balls, I doubt any of us would grab ahold of an orange mouse with a three foot tail would we?

But as the cat stalked the string, I realized that they're more clever than dogs. A dog does not stalk. A dog runs full tilt at something in the hopes that he is fast enough to catch it. A cat is smarter than that. He sneaks up on his piece of string. He shuttles from one hiding place to another until he is in position. Now, granted the leg of a kitchen chair is not a great thing for a cat to hide behind, it hardly provides cover for a twelve pound gray cat. However, this is string. String is not known in the wild for it's superior thought process. It should be easily fooled into thinking this chair has one fat gray hairy leg.

Finally, Mr. Demonsworth (that's his name...the cat not the string) leaps from his clever hiding place among the kitchen furniture and pounces on the string. A few moments of biting and soundly thrashing the string, whips it into submission. Once again, my cat has triumphed over his arch enemy...the string!

So I began to experiment with larger adversaries for my feline friend. He was quite fond of the string with a ball tied to the end of it, while he seemed to exibit fear of the string and stone combination. So, what did this tell me? My cat preferred beating up small creatures while leaving the larger ones alone. As my wife pointed out, I also learned dragging a stone across the floor with a string, not only scares the cat but also scars the floor.

But I love my cat, regardless of whether or not he would protect me from a home intruder. A figure if I'm ever broken in on by a mouse the cat will willingly protect me. However, if the intruder is larger than a mouse, you better not get between him and the back door, he's going to run for his life. I'm unsure if this is his fear of large intruders or that he's seen me shoot before and is getting out of the way.

But cat's aren't the brightest of creatures. I'm not a morning person and neither is my wife. My cat on the otherhand thinks that six in the morning is a fine time to discuss world events. My wife and I get out of bed and usually don't speak to each other for an hour. What I don't want is a meowing cat when I'm trying to decide if my shirt has another day's wear left in it. Just get out of bed and meow meow! He follows me around going meow meow. It's very distracting trying to read the Reader's Digest in the bathroom with a cat sitting there on the sink going meow meow. My wife suggested I should talk to him as he was just happy to see me. I guess this may be the third thing I learned about my cat this week. He doesn't understand the first curse word. I would give him a good loud expletive and he'd still say, "meow."

So yesterday morning I had finally had enough. I got down on my hands and knees and started meowing back at him. Everytime he would meow I'd just meow right back. This went on for a long time until my wife came and got me. We went to the doctor and he gave me some more pills.

But possibly the most annoying thing my cat does is watch me. All day long I catch that cat just staring at me. I know what he's thinking too. But I promise you, I'll get him before he gets me. One of these days he won't have my wife and my pill happy doctor to protect him.

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