Things My Cats Have Taught Me

I came across a blog post that inspired me. I have to say, that I laughed out loud when I read it because the author had written a serious article about what he has learnt from his cat. It really was deadly serious and, of course, business related. This person gave the world several lessons that he had picked up from his moggy that he could apply to his business life. Laugh? I nearly had an accident.

To counter that, I’ve decided to tell you all what I have learnt from my three crazy black cats.

First, I have learnt how to use a litter tray. Unsurprisingly, the one used by my cats was a little too small for me, so I adapted a baker’s bread tray for the purpose. Moreover, it cost me a small fortune in cat litter and Mrs PM started complaining (and not just about the cost of kitty litter).

Moving on: at first, purring and excessive affection caused Mrs PM some alarm; she thought I had gone mad. However, sitting on her knee and rubbing my face against her hair actually had some effect before she experienced the litter tray fiasco. I had the advantage of being bigger than Mrs PM so it was difficult for her to throw me off her lap. I also tried this tactic at work to win favour; unfortunately my work colleagues reported me to the HR department.

My cats also taught me that I can get Mrs PM to cook my dinner all the time by constantly and relentlessly howling in anguish whenever I am hungry. Initally, she was reluctant but, after weeks of indefatigable perseverance I got a result: she started beating me with a rolling pin. I almost reported her to the RSPCA.

Cats can climb very easily. I have tried this. I taped some nails to my fingers and toes and tried to climb the tall tree at the bottom of our neighbour’s garden. Sadly, my neighbour caught me and set her dog on me. And that’s the next lesson – dogs don’t like cats! I barely escaped with my leg intact. But persistence is my middle name, so I tried climbing the tree in our garden. Unfortunately, it couldn’t take my weight and I almost pole-axed myself on the fence.

Cats are also great hunters and I have tried this with a little tuition from the three cats. The big advantage that cats have over their human slaves is that they can see in the dark and are extremely fit and fast, whereas I can barely see past the end of my nose and am totally unfit and so slow that I struggle to outrun old people. But I am nothing if not determined and resourceful. I can tell you that crawling around in the garden on all fours in the middle of the night with a torch attached to your head armed with cheese and bird seed can actually allow you to catch mice and birds – or so I’ve been told. I was out there for four hours and caught nothing but a cold.

Cats like to give gifts to their loved ones. My three moggies bring us decapitated mice and half-eaten birds all the time. Mrs PM never scolds them. Sadly, she didn’t take too kindly to me depositing a half-eaten haggis on the bed at three o’clock in the morning.

Another dubious cat trait is the disgusting habit of eating grass, usually enough to make them throw up. I have to tell you, grass tastes disgusting and I’m not surprised they vomit all over the carpet. It had the same effect on me and Mrs PM was not best pleased. She thought I’d been drinking.

Finally, struggling to cope, I decided to try my hand at singing like a cat. My three usually do this at four in morning. I have to say, serenading the neighbours with screeching howls just before dawn is therapeutic. It also helps with your fitness as you flee from the neighbours’ dogs.

So what have I learned? Well Mrs PM has thrown me out of the house. At first I thought it was because of my litter tray, but the haggis and vomit were apparently the final straw. My neighbour reported me to the police and, in my haste to escape by climbing a tree, I ended up falling down and breaking both my legs. When lying there on the ground, I was set upon by a nasty police dog who presumably mistook me for a moggy.

Of course, the contents of the above post are totally and utterly untrue. Mrs PM hasn’t thrown me out and I am not currently sitting in a hospital bed under police supervision, with the men in white coats waiting with a straitjacket to cart me off to the vet. Nor am I meowing and purring and chasing small wild creatures around the garden.

As absurd as it sounds, this post makes more sense than the original “what I have learned from my cat” post that I read. I would provide a link but I wouldn’t want the author to think I was ridiculing his efforts to equate the world of business with the workings of the feline mind.

After all, I’ll bet he never took his litter tray into an important meeting; he probably left it outside.