Autobiographies are written by the self-indulgent. This is not an autobiography. This is not even a short story about my life. This is about me. There’s no difference, I hear you say. But there is. I don’t intend to talk about my daily life or about the female I date. I shall talk about myself and my opinion on certain cat-related issues.
Shall we first get over with the introductions?
I’m Cat. Kit Cat. Yes funny! Ha ha! Laugh all you want. But for us cats our surnames are always Cats. Something like your Daruwalas or Batliwalas. My name, ‘Kit’, now that’s another thing. There’s a story to that. I was orphaned and adopted even before I realised what was happening around me. I was told my mother died when she fell from the roof of a human house. How she managed that I do not know. (Cats can jump down two storeys unharmed. It is surprising that the film industry has still not thought of using us for stunts. But then that are human beings for you. Brainless twits.) I guess my mother did not really have a chance of surviving. You see, she had already lived eight lives. But these stories about my mother I heard much later. My first stories were those I heard from the Humans who took pity on me and adopted me when I could barely open my eyes. Though to give myself a little credit I was adorable even at that age. Now, I am not one of the vain cats you hear about. But you have to call a spade a spade and a looker a looker. And I was a looker. Anyways, to go back to the story of how I came to be called Kit. I was alone and shivering in the cold when the Humans took me in. They gave me milk and a warm blanket. They started calling me Kittie, a name that came easiest for a cute shivering little kitten. Over the next few weeks they considered several names but Kittie stuck on. Over time Kittie became Kit. And that’s how I came to be Kit. Kit Cat.
Now that I have finished introducing myself let me tell you the real reason that I am talking to you. As I told you before, I am not going to talk about my life. What I am going to do is clarify certain misapprehensions you humans have about us cats. Before I get into the discussion I would like to say that I am not trying to justify any of our actions but just stating facts. Plain cold facts. Here it goes.
Cats are not lazy.
No seriously. We are not lazy. Don’t judge us because of that Garfield Cat fellow. He’s a fat slob and should not even be called a cat. Think about it logically. We spend hours grooming ourselves. You can call us vain. But how can you call us lazy. Why would anyone lazy make the effort of covering up his refuse? Yes, we do that. We don’t leave it around for others to step on it like humans do. Now you could call humans lazy for doing that but not us cats. You can’t call us lazy because we like to curl up in a chair most of the day. We do that to warm the seat for the humans. You can call us kind but certainly not lazy. The problem with you humans is that you tend to misunderstand everything because of your amazing capacity to analyse things at a superficial level. You see somebody’s hand bleeding and you say, ‘Oh you’re bleeding.’ A cat on the other hand would have said, ‘You should keep the apple on a chopping board and not in your hand while cutting.’ We cats go beyond the obvious whereas you humans jump to conclusions.
To give you another example, I never stray beyond the boundaries of the block that I live in. Now, you humans would immediately jump to the conclusion that I am too lazy and comfortable to bother to step out of my ‘territory’. The truth actually is that I don’t venture out because I am a very kind cat. I am a softie at heart. Don’t scoff. It is true. A long time ago I had overheard some humans saying that ‘It is bad luck if a cat crosses the road.’ See there you go! Jumping to conclusions. ‘Black cats’ you correct me. ‘It is bad luck if a black cat crosses the road.’ You should have met me before you passed on that quick statement. You see, I forgot to mention earlier that one of the names the Humans considered calling me (in addition to Kittie) was Blacky!
