My cat Stella has always preferred Dan Brown to Balzac, Nicholas Sparks to William Shakespeare, and Entertainment Weekly to The Economist. In fact, the other day I came home and caught her stuffing an issue of Woman's World under the couch cushions. Shameful, I know, but she's my cat and I love her, even if she still thinks Obama is a Muslim.
Stella is 15 years old now and, like most senior citizens, she gets pissed off easily. And when she does, she has taken to pissing on whatever is irritating her, be it the bathroom rug, my gym bag, or a pile of laundry just back from the laundrymat. This is understandable--those things can be pretty annoying. But yesterday I was shocked to find out not just that Stella hates my gym bag, but that she specifically hates my copy of Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason. I never realized that she had such a passionate dislike for books that called into question the very idea of organized religion and the divinity of scripture, but leave it to Stella to surprise me even at the ripe-old-age of whatever she is in human years!
If you look closely you can see Stella's displeasure with my choice of reading material.
I was on the L train against my better judgment and I had just pulled my book out of my bag for the long days’ journey into Manhattan when I realized that the person right beside me smelled like piss. I gave this person—a dirty hipster, don’t you know—a friendly yet irritated glance that told him, “I know you haven’t showered in five days, but I still like your shoes” and then opened my book. It only took a few minutes for it to dawn on me that the smell was actually coming from my book—the pages were stained and curling up. Stella had obviously visited my man-bag the previous night intent on letting me know that she doesn’t care for Paine’s blasphemous blathering.
Lesser men would have tossed the book. But I’m not one of those, so I continued reading because I’m not about to let the terrorist (in this case, Stella) win.
Stella also thinks torture works and that Sonia Sotomayor is a racist. And she voted for Palin. (Not McCain-Palin, just Palin.) Thankfully, though, she is pro-gay marriage, but that's not unusual for a cat.
5 comments:
I wonder what Thomas Paine's views are on euthanasia and cats.
Once upon a time, I went to the movies with my fiancee. When we arrived, we began giving dirty looks to the movie viewers in our vicinity, b/c one of those dirty hipsters smelled dinstinctively like cat piss, and here in the dirty south, we're not quite as tolerant as you New Yorkers are, plus we couldn't see anyone's shoes.
To make a long story short, it turns out that my cat was also a big proponent of gay marriage, or maybe just pissed about having to share the bed. The really funny part of this story is that my dirty hipster fiancee actually wore those jeans seven times before he realized that HE was the one that smelled like cat urine.
Your article is so timely. My cat, The Pookapotamus, is experiencing what can only be described as a total existential crisis. Although, he voted for Obama and is confident that Sotomayor will remain above the fray, it seems the last 8 years are catching up with him. You see, like most animals, The Pookapotamus meets stressful situations with a fight or flight response. During the years of the Bush administration he, like so many of us, put his best face forward and marched on like a brave, fat, fuzzy soldier, ignoring the pain of embarrassment and betrayal that laid just below the surface of his friendly feline countenance. Now, it seems, with so much of the past's ugliness behind us, he has finally let his guard down. In other words, he is pissing all over my shit, all the time. I want to put him on drugs, but my hippie vet won't let me. I'm sending the bill for our new carpet to George and Laura Bush. Thank you, Tim. Thank you for getting it.
ps- I had no idea that Stella had such conservative leanings. Our last conversation had me convinced that she was quite moderate. Love her anyway!
Haha, Woman's World. For shame. Best shit-mag ever. Always loved its awkward dimensions, crappy-ass font, and low-grade photography. And the stories--THE STORIES.
I must pick one up asap. (Thanks!)
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