Day 19: My Opinion on Cats and Dogs

Today’s “Build a Better Blog” task asked me for my opinion. Seriously. It said, “Hey Larrie, what do YOU think?” when I opened the link. Wow. How’d it know my name? They must be tracking IP addresses over at that there Problogger.

So what does it want my opinion on, you might ask?

Anything I feel like.

Wow.

I thought about this for a while. Then I stopped thinking about it and worked for a while. Then I thought about it again. Then I went to lunch and didn’t think about anything except for willing my metabolism to speed up as I aged. When that failed, I turned my attention back to my opinion blog entry waiting for me to write it.

I even ran into the blog entry walking back to lunch and it got mad at me. “Hey, Larrie, when are you going to write me already?”

Fine, I said. Let me sit down real quick like and write an opinion on something that is not political.*

So here you have my opinion on owning cats. (Feel free to laugh here and now at the cat lady.) Here goes.

I grew up with pets. We had dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, fish**, a snake and a frog. In junior high, I even had a very close encounter with a big dog and his teeth that taught me not to allow a dog’s teeth to bite down on my face ever again. Good lesson.

I look forward to the day when I will have a yard and therefore, a dog again. I can teach him all the tricks that I taught our poodle, including hide and seek. Until that day, I have a cat who thinks he’s a dog. Here’s what happens when I get home.

I sit down to read mail, turn on the TV and realize that something is biting the remote and/or my hand. Oh, it’s just Pogi telling me, “Hi, you taste salty and this remote does a little, too.”

I pat him on his head even though he would really prefer that I pet him. He runs down the hallway into the bedroom and comes back with a toy. It’s a tiny, pink stuffed mouse that isn’t so much stuffed now because he decided to make a hole in it and pull out some of its stuffing. Like a dog. Dogs have toys that once-upon-a-time resembled objects like stuffed animals, tennis balls, or the neighbor’s cat.

Back to Pogi. He drops his little pink toy on my lap and sits back waiting. Usually, he’s waiting on the top of the couch, muscles twitching in anticipation and he’s purring like a Bugatti Veyron just waiting to race along the A81 from Gottmadingen to Weinsberg in Germany***. At this point, I’ve put down the mail and have my laptop on to address the homework needs for the night. It takes me a minute to realize the cat’s waiting for me to throw his toy again, but his purring gets louder and I can’t turn up the TV enough to drown him out. Fine. I throw the toy.

He back flips off of the couch.

This used to amaze me. It’s not so amazing anymore because he does it almost every time. It’s gotten old. He should come up with something new, like throwing in an extra flip and a double twist, plus some toe touches and a high five.

He brings the toy back and drops it. In this, he is not like a dog. He always drops his toy. None of that slimey-tennis-ball-tug-of-war. I appreciate this because I do not want to wash my hands every time I play fetch.

Also, when I fake a throw, Pogi NEVER falls for it. This always worked for our dogs growing up. And then you would laugh at them while they ran around the backyard looking for the tennis ball in the flowers, under the tramp, in the hot tub. They never think to check your hand.

Pogi just stares at me, though, when I fake a throw. I’m sure he’s thinking, “Come on. As if.” Sometimes, he just waits until I give up on the faking and throw it already. Other times, he chooses not to wait and bites the fist with the toy crushed up inside. Ouch.

Once, I didn’t want to play fetch so I took the toy and stuck it in the bathroom door just above the highest hinge. I thought that cat would be jumping for his toy for the next hour. He got it down in four jumps.

He won. I played fetch.

And that’s what life is like with a cat. The end.

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*When my blog had the most hits, it was when I was writing lots of my political opinions all over the place. True, I was getting more and more traffic each week, but I was also getting more and more depressed. NATIONAL POLITICS IS A MAJOR DOWNER, DESPITE WHICH PARTY HAS THE POWER. Corruption does not equal happiness. Imagine that.

**We owned fish for about a week, maybe. It wasn’t long before they were belly up in their bowl, though, so I replaced real-life fish with a cartoon fish in 6^th grade.

***No, I’ve never been there, but I hear it’s a 121 mile stretch of straight, well-engineered pavement with sporadic law enforcement – basically it’s a playground for the lead-footed.

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