Somebody woke me up and asked me how I intended to spend National Cat Day. I looked at them like they had a screw loose. “What do you mean…National Cat Day?” I asked.
They said it was an internet thing observed on October 29, started in 2005 to bring public awareness to the number of cats that need rescuing and to encourage cat lovers to celebrate the cats in their life.
I live a sheltered life and hadn’t a clue what the internet was and didn’t quite get the rescue reference. And what did they mean by celebrate? I started salivating thinking of raw grouse for dinner.
“Rescued?” “Are they lost are something?” I asked. “And what is the internet?”
They answered, “The internet is a global system of inter-connected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to serve several billion users worldwide. I got that from Wikipedia. And 15 percent of all internet traffic searches have something to do with cats. And by rescued, I mean cats that need good homes. Weren’t you adopted from a shelter?”
“Yes”, I replied. “I lived in a cage and then some humans took me to their house.”
I started to get bored and wished that I could run away and take a nap.
As if reading my mind they asked, “Aren’t you interested in anything besides sleeping 16 hours a day?”
“As a matter of fact, I am,” I replied, “but you will probably think me self-centered.”
I began to engage my listener with some interesting feline facts.
“I can spot a deer in the woods at 120 feet, or catch him in my peripheral vision at 285 degrees, and this is making me curious as to why my human companion is having so much trouble finding a deer this hunting season. And I’ve been thinking about the dogs that sometimes walk on the trail in the forest below the house. Poor things have such a limited vocabulary. They can only speak 10 different sounds while I can communicate up to 100. And I think I am in pretty good shape for a 5-year-old. The average kitty weighs in at around 12 lbs and I am right in line with that.”
“Ah, it appears you do have a few interests…about cats that is,” they said.
“Before you woke me up, I was dreaming about my successful cat harness business that I’ve been dreaming about since I was a week old. Now, will you excuse me, please?”