Nouveau Cat

For many millennia human beings have enjoyed the company of the Felus Catus, more commonly known as the Swamp Moggy. Whilst in past civilisations, such as ancient Egypt, people may have gathered around to ROFL whilst pointing at a particularly funny hieroglyph of a cat poking it's head out of a hole in the ceiling with the witty subtitle "Amun-Ra cat is watching you castrate eunuchs"   or some such thing, modern man missed out on sharing the hilarity of trying to keep a borderline psychopathic/homicidal fur-covered narcissist under some sort of domestic control with other people without eventually having to say "well, look, it was funny at the time, you had to be there".


(ASIDE: I didn't realise this until just now, but someone has actually dedicated a site to Ceiling Cat... wow. http://www.ceilingcat.com/. Cats even have power over our internet memes! Probably more so than any other pet, that's for sure.) 


True, the story about how your cat had a conversation with you while you were doing the dishes, or the look on its face when it brought home a particularly gruesome eviscerated marsupial for your attention does lack a certain lustre when conveyed in simple words. 
Then came  ****THE INTERWEBS****. It should have a theme song of it's own. In fact, this might suffice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9vrfEoc8_g


Suddenly the face of shared media is changed, and you can now direct your friends' attention to a hilarious video you found or uploaded, and ROFL together in mutual appreciation at the questionable behaviour of a beloved companion animal. YouTube has brought us such gems as:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qff9V27Weaw


and:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JynBEX_kg8&feature=related


Personally, I spend nearly 99% of the time on YouTube looking at videos of cats. There is just something about the way that they seem to simultaneously be dead serious whilst acting like an overripe banana in a microwave that makes them compelling viewing. Even in real life, I often catch myself provoking my cat in to committing acts of violence against me, simply because, despite a notable depletion in my band-aid supply, seeing them crack it at you with the ferocity of a pissed-off mountain lion jammed into a wiry insanity of a small 4kg housecat is ever so morbidly amusing. 
I'm fairly certain that in between eating and cleaning herself and complaining and hissing at the dog, my cat sleeps and dreams of only a few simple things: 

This has led me to ponder just how a typical pet cat's brain and motivation centres are set up. I think the below diagram adequately illustrates the working sectors of a cat's brain; the size of the section is directly related to the time they spend either acting on or thinking about each subject therein: 

The thing is, despite, or maybe even because of, the unfathomable psyche of the cat, they really do make good companions. Some would say that they lack the intelligence of dogs and I would certainly concur that they lack the loyalty of the canine; but for millions of people just in this country that is exactly their attraction. A dog needs to be entertained, driven, led. A cat prefers you to feed them, provide a warm part of your body to leech heat from, and occasionally have you groom them when they can't be bothered doing it themselves. For my money however, I prefer the cat simply because if I was going to choose someone to be lonely with it would be something that, due to its immense ego, almost fails to understand loneliness and through that hubris actually makes a reassuring friend. My cat's general response to being left alone all day is to sleep on a lawn chair in the sun and stalk introduced species of bird that alight on the deck. Even in the face of the completely random and medically insane behaviours that we witness in cats, when it comes to the important things, they are masters of their craft. 


'Oh Don Piano' indeed...