Aug 19 2008
Evil Cats
Super Cat
Michael has demanded I post this picture of Inari in the blog. Picture this thing nudging you awake in the morning and try not to be a little terrified.
We’ve been getting a lot of bugs in the house lately - big old flies, little bitty wasps… Inari has been taking care of most of them. She catches the flies and bats them around. When they stop moving, she nudges them with her paw gently and when they start moving she leaps onto them, taking them into her mouth and then spitting them out. The other night she let a fly crawl under a box in the living room just long enough for it to believe it was safe, before she knocked the whole box over, took the fly in her mouth and then ran off with it. If our cat was a human, she would be terrifying. I can picture her raping and pillaging entire villages, just to watch people squirm. Luckily, she’s a cat and the most damage she can do is kill bugs that we don’t want in our house, anyway.
Last night we got a new and totally awesome vacuum cleaner. The cat was terrified of it, and yet drawn to it. My first cat was scared of vacuum cleaners but would eventually curl up on a chair in a safe room and sleep. Inari follows the vacuum cleaner, keeping her distance. I tried to pet her and she shook me off with a glare. Obviously, she needed her full attention on the intruder.
I try to carry Inari onto our balcony every day. We like to watch birds together. She is used to this activity and generally is well behaved. She knows that the second she misbehaves or just gets frightened, I will take her inside. I know she knows this because she will attempt to move briefly and then sit back down on her own. I don’t have to warn her vocally or anything. Eventually, though, something is just too exciting and she’ll get fussy. Or a human being will walk by and she will become terrified. Inside we go.
I think cats are a little bit evil, which is all the more reason to keep them on your side. But if I stopped feeding Inari, I don’t doubt that she would eat my ears while I sleep.