One of those things that make you go hmmm, then WTF?

Continuing on the theme of cats, I have to share what I saw at our local veterinary hospital recently.

I almost drove my car off the side of the road and into the fence that surrounds our local veterinary hospital after reading the sign it had posted for animal boarders. If you can’t see it in the photo at left, look closely in photo below, at right.

That’s right: “Air conditioned boarding Cable TV Open 7 Days” [emphasis mine]. Cable TV? Wow. I just imagine Rex riding by with his head out the window of his owner’s pickup truck barking up a storm when he sees that, as if to say, “Hey, Billy Bob, that’s where I want to go when you go fishing with the boys up in Canada? I love to watch me some SportsCenter.”

Or Mittens as she’s on her way out from the clinic one day meowing to her old lady owner as if to say, “Oh, Mrs. Haversham, could you please leave me here so I don’t miss my Oprah? You know how I love my Oprah, how I almost claw your eyes out if I can’t watch her ever day at 4.” (Personally, I’d claw my own eyes out if I was forced to watch Oprah every day, but then that’s just me.)

And what happens when the cats, dogs, parakeets, pet crocodiles and other assorted critters don’t agree on what each of them want to watch? You think it’s bad at the local retirement home (of which we have about half a dozen in our little town) when those folks can’t agree between reruns of Murder She Wrote and Baywatch. You ain’t seen, or let alone heard, nothing until you’ve seen and heard your grandmother’s Persian, Millie, screech at the top of her lungs because she’s missing the latest episode of All My Children and your uncle Bocephus’s bulldog moan because he’s not able to see that CSI rerun that he’s only seen 20 times on Spike – both at the same time. Lemme tell you.

Shall I compare our cat Seamus to my sister’s son?

After reading my sister’s great American blog entry about our cat versus her son, my nephew, my answer is yes, I shall, I shall.

This one has been a long time coming, but I didn’t want to broach the subject, lest I offend Sister, with the comparison between Seamus, our cat, and her son, to whom she affectionately refers as “Toddler” on her blog.

Now though that’s she opened the door with mentioning/not mentioning “the milk cap-ring-thingee stealing incident where the toddler snatched the cat’s toy before the cat could pull it within its grasp.” That is only one of the many ways Seamus and Toddler are alike, but it is one of the first.

• Seamus fetches the milk-cap-ring-thingee when tossed to him like the dog he isn’t.
• Toddler fetches the milk-cap-ring-thingee when tossed to him like neither the dog nor cat he isn’t. Like Seamus, he also grows bored with fetching and wanders off to do something else when he is no longer interested in aforementioned toss and fetching.

A couple of other ways Seamus and Toddler are alike:

• Seamus doesn’t like when I’m on phone with Sister, not paying attention to him, and seems to pester me, sometimes talking to me (usually in Farsi, although occasionally Aramaic, neither of which I understand, but recognize from my extensive reading of intelligence documents for the CIA on Iran’s nuclear program — oops, I wasn’t supposed to say that, was I, guys? sorrreee — and my extensive reading of the New Testament of the Bible in the original language), often pawing random items off the kitchen counter.
• Toddler doesn’t like when Sister is on phone with me, not paying attention to him, often talking to her (also in Farsi and Aramaic, another way surprisingly the two are alike; I don’t know why they just can’t get along since they speak the same languages) and wreaking unholy havoc around her while she is on phone. “Toddler, what are you doing now?…Oh, Toddler, no, don’t…” which is usually followed by “touch that, play with that, hit the kitty, hit the dog…”
• Seamus squirms sometimes when held as if he’d rather be somewhere else: usually trying to find insects on screens to windows or on wall above lamp.
• Toddler squirms sometimes when held as if he’d rather be somewhere else: usually, though, not trying to find insects on screens, but wanting Mommy’s boob again even though Wife and Self think he should have been weaned long ago, what with our extensive knowledge of child-rearing since Wife and Self have no children (for a more serious presentation on weaning, see this article on Healthline, where it is noted that in other countries children are still suckling at their mother’s breast as old as 4.20 years! OMHG! — o my Holy God — in the U.S. average 2.75 years, less of an exclamation point, and less of an OMHG) and all.

I’m sure if I sat down and thought about it some more, I could come up with at least a dozen more ways Seamus and Toddler are alike, but for now, my brain hurts from trying to wrap its coils around that thought of weaning until 4.20 years. Yikes and double yikes! Those Frenchies and their crazy ways!