I read recently a woman's post on cats. Normally I don't bother and scroll
or click away, but she looked quite hot so my attention span spanned for more
than 2 seconds. Then I noticed words such as intelligence, affection and other
sugary attempts at anthropomorphism. And I also noticed the post was rather
very long. So I stopped, eventually, after 3 seconds (which is 50 percent more
than usual). I'm all in for wasting time and enjoying the occasional
hilarious drivel, but not one that takes itself seriously. Because nasty things
can happen if people start taking seriously such things (look at religion).
In the attractive lady's defence, I can see the cat appearing intelligent to
her (in a direct comparison the cat would probably win), but this doesn't change
anything.
Here's a good example.
I was taking out the trash this morning when I noticed a group of five cats
in heat. All tense, growling and fighting. I am not familiar with cats'
interest in group sex in general, but this particular group didn't seem to be
much into that; they seemed to struggle with the teaming. You could see immediately there was
an obvious problem with grouping an odd number of things into pairs.
First, a bit of math. I am not proficient at distinguishing a cat's sex from
the distance (no, this isn't the part that has anything to do with math), so let's cover all scenarios. The most difficult one is -in my
opinion- 3 males and 2 females. Because 4 males and 1 female would be much
easier to sort; just set the rota and make sure everyone follows schedule. And
5 males is even easier; problem solved already. They can all go for a beer and
have a good time; no need to fight, at least not before a few glasses. In fairness (and also to keep pleased my feminist readers,
I'm sure there are lots of them among the 3 or 4 readers of this blog), let's
cover now the scenarios when females outnumber the males. An almost equal number
of females and males -that's 3 females and 2 males, if you struggle with numbers- is the trickiest bit, because no male would allow the
other one to have two while it only gets one. 4 females to 1 male is probably
the easiest: the male promises to take care of all of them, but after having a go with the best-looking one it'll get tired and fall asleep. In these case
there would be only 3 cats fighting, one quiet and happy and the fifth quiet
and happy. And sleeping. And finally, the scenario of 5 females could easily
explain the fighting, hissing and overall noise.
Of course, there could also be sexual minorities (to keep HR happy, too),
but not even David Attenborough is that thorough. Ricky Gervais tackled the
topic briefly more than 10 years ago but eventually dismissed it for lack of evidence.
I thought of all this while enjoying the show (I know most people find
irritating the noise cats make when they're in heat, but I find it hilarious).
But after feeling like Attenborough observing wild animals in their natural habitat, I got cold after a few minutes and got
back inside.
My point is that cats are nowhere near humans at organizing even such simple
tasks. People are more evolved, they invented things like gang-bangs (or the
more conservative ménage-à-trois for those interested but bashful or agoraphobic)
or fishbowls and car-keys to tackle such complicated matters. And let's not forget alcohol, of course. Actually, the most human behaviour I've seen in a cat was when it got drunk at a
party. After 2 saucers of champagne and some beer it got feisty and
unstable.
But generalization based on exceptions is wrong. Granted, cats are generally
cute and particularly cuddly. But not human. Unless you count crass stupidity.
In which case that attractive lady is very, very right.
18 January, 2015
A very long article about cats and another not so long article about cats.
Labels:
birdwatching,
biscuits,
evolution 101,
feathery stuff,
I forgot the labels,
issues,
kitty,
Nature
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