CATS!

No, not the musical. I'm referring to those little furry creatures who creep into our hearts. And cupboards. And closets. And pantries. And whatever other door we forget to close. Let's face it, few creatures on the planet can fascinate us like cats. Tiny little balls of fur, but also ruthless killers. Well, most of them. We have three cats. When I say three, I actually mean two cats and one thing that resembles a cat but has never proven its validity. We've seen it being chased by birds, and even the occasional fly. And it is also the only male cat we have. So much for males being the dominant sex! Then we have our tabby cat. Mighty huntress, expert killer, and also cuddly as anything! And last but not least, we have our Maine Coon. A cat that defines the term "serial killer". She catches birds, lizards, snakes, insects, spiders....hell, if it moves, she'll catch it. If it doesn't move, she'll wait for it to move, and then catch it. And not just to eat. I'm convinced she does it just for fun! We found a recently deceased bird in our bathroom the one morning. It was clear that it was a case of murder most foul. Or fowl, as the case might be. And seeing as the bird was bigger than our tabby cat, that left just one suspect: our Maine Coon. And she didn't eat it. She simply murdered it and dragged it into our bathroom to show off her superiority.

The other thing that I find extremely strange is the fact that she would go outside when it is pouring with rain. And not a little bit of rain. I'm talking Noah's Ark type of rain! And she would romp around in it before finally coming inside, soaking wet, and jumping on our bed with the sole purpose of informing us, quite loudly, that it is in fact raining outside. Before then proceeding to rub herself dry against any exposed body part. Which is quite a shock in the middle of the night! Occasionally we'd also wake up to the sound of her chasing some hapless creature around the room. We'd hear her claws on the carpet, the sound of scrabbling or flapping from her victim, and also her soft chattering. Which I am convinced is her telling her victim what she intends to do with it! After a while silence would fall, and we'd be about to fall blissfully into dreamland again when the crunching starts. I should point out at this stage that she eats the entire victim, leaving only feathers behind if the deceased was of the feathery persuasion. It is quite hard to sleep with something crunching bone and munching internal organs under your bed!

I think that Andrew Lloyd Webber got it wrong. The musical Cats should have been 9 hours of the audience watching the cast members sleep. Occasionally one of the cast members would then get up and run around the audience for no reason before curling up on the stage again. And every now and then a female cast member would walk up to a male audience member, rub lovingly up against him before hacking up a hairball on his shoes and walking back to the stage. And yet, despite all the weirdness and unexplained behaviour, we love cats. (not the musical, the animals). In fact, my lovely companion recently shared an online comic she found about the weird and wonderful world of cats: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill. Quite apt, I think......