When I’m not busy saving the world creating bumper stickers, I sometimes contemplate important philosophical questions, such as “Who’s more annoying, my cat or my kids?” It’s not immediately apparent, since they really are annoying in many of the same ways. For example, they both demand my attention, walk around whining, poop a lot, wake me up in the middle of night (often by jumping on my head), knock shit over, dart around the house recklessly, and require feeding and playing and cuddling.
But after careful consideration, I’ve discovered that my cat is indeed less annoying than my kids. Here’s why.
- The cat poops in her litter box, as opposed to her diaper.
- The cat cleans herself. Without arguing.
- When the cat doesn’t like her dinner, she just walks away, as opposed to flailing on the ground exclaiming for 15 minutes that we never eat anything good and she’s just SOOOO starving she’s going to die.
- When the cat knocks something over, she runs away startled rather than playing in the mess and blaming her brother.
- I can chuck the cat off the bed in the middle of the night when she irritates me.
- The cat will be entertained with a wadded up piece of paper for 12+ hours, unlike my kids, who have at least 75,000 toys but STILL can’t find ANYTHING to do.
- I can punish the cat by squirting it in the head with water and not feel guilty about it.
- The cat’s clothes are already on her and she doesn’t outgrow them, complain about them, need new ones or clean ones.
- The cat sleeps in a ball at the foot of the bed, as opposed to horizontally across the mattress with her feet in my face.
- The cat doesn’t talk.
AND, that brings us to the one I forgot: The cat can be left with a bowl of water, some food and a scratch post for many hours or even a day or two at a time, while I go on vacation. The last time I did that with one of my kids, I got in BIG trouble.
Which reminds me, dear friends who refer to their pets as “fur babies” or just “babies,” your cat is not your baby. Incidentally, neither is your dog.
Please stop saying that to people with actual kids. It just makes us jealous.
THE CAT IN QUESTION
