Lopsided Cat Establishes His Dominance
Posted on November 23, 2011 Posted by John Scalzi 38 Comments
Look, it’s not like he has anything against the lamp. But the lamp was where he wanted to nap. The lamp had to go.
Whatever
FURIOUSLY REASONABLE
WHATEVER
Taunting the tauntable since 1998
John Scalzi, proprietor – JS
Athena Scalzi, contributor – AMS
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How like a cat. When our younger cat, Starbuck, gets bored, she jumps up on tables, desks, or dressers and lazily bats whatever she finds off onto the floor just to watch it fall.
Through careful study of feline behavior over the past 25 or so years, I can state with confidence that cats recognize 5 states of matter:
1) Things that they can eat
2) Things they can sleep on
3) Things that will pet them
4) Things that are on the floor
5) Things that could be on the floor
Note that they are not mutually exclusive states. I, for instance, am a member of classes two and three, and the way my fur ball looks at me some mornings, possibly one.
Lopsided Cat simply helped the lap transition from state 5 to state 4.
That is one big cat ! Hmm, this is third cat picture of Lop and Zeus. Uh oh, I feel a scolding coming on from Mr. Chang, who is not Chang.
Animals are weird. For some reason, one or more of our three dogs has/ve taken to building a dog fort in the living room, when we’re out at work. When we got home last night, the large Costco pack of paper towels had been dragged out of laundry room onto dog rug in living room, daughter’s D&D back pack was also there, emptied out, and they’d also grabbed a bathmat and thrown it into the mix. If they weren’t all fixed, I’d say that one of them was building a spot to have puppies.
In the battle for comfort, the one with the elbows always wins…
I like that guys style. I plan to do the same thing to the dining room table tomorrow after Thanksgiving dinner.
Holy moly, I have that same night stand! I have the same night stand as John Scalzi! This means something! I must use exclamation points!
If cat’s didn’t feel the need to sleep 20 hours a day, they wouldn’t need so many different places to do it. But then on the other hand, do we really want cats awake and alert even half the day? Would we be safe?
Joe@3:50: ROLF!
I often wonder why the choose to sleep the places they do. A hard table, vs dozens and dozens of soft cushy places. I conclude that they get satisfaction from a certain level of discomfort, especially if it coincides with any annoyance to the other inhabitants of the household.
At least he didn’t direct it at your head…Bitty kitty, minion of satan used that move in place of an alarm clock when she wanted food.
This, and small kids, is why we haven’t used more compact fluorescent lightbulbs in my house.
@Gilmoure. We call it dog engineering. Ours have a supply of cheap plush pillows with which they periodically build a petting toll booth between the living room and dining room.
I believe the Feline’s First Law of Physics is to search for the most inconvenient (to their humans) place to sleep…then sleep there.
Dave Branson@1: Our girl cat, Lucy does this. Not as much as she did as a kitten but she will still knock over glasses of water or anything that looks breakable. Sometimes, she’ll make sure we’re looking first.
There’s one possibility you’re missing: he’s a lopsided cat, maybe he was just on the nightstand a flopped over.
Silly lamp; tables are for cats!
Our most memorable feline redecorating moment came years ago at about three in the morning, when the cat knocked over the Christmas tree. That was, of course, the year the tree was adorned largely with handmade decorations, including gingerbread men and strings of popcorn and cranberries. It was awhile before it occurred to us that the cat probably had been chasing a mouse that was snacking on the decorations.
Ours are most fond of boxes – any boxes. It’s one of the funniest things going watching our 20 lb tom trying to fit himself into a shoe box. When we get large boxes, the cats look at it like the postman just brought the holy grail right to their front door.
christy: mine love boxes of styrofoam peanuts. They get in and gradually subside until they look like they’re taking a bubble bath.
Note to self: Buy lead shot and polyester resin and mix up some five pounds
of them, put into the base of that lamp that I’m always elbowing when I use
the curtain pull
–
(My hope being that the lamp will go all Weeble and stand back up.)
That lamp will think twice before trying to mess with Lopsided Cat again.
Well now we know who the light of your life is. :)
What literary treasures does yonder beast slumber over?
I wonder if the Scalzi family keeps the house warm. My overly caloried kitty likes to sleep on wood or tile when it’s hot, and soft cushy things when it’s not. But knocking over things is always in season.
My cats tend to run away scared when they knock things over, so I’m impressed that Lopsided Cat just moved in and fell asleep.
@ Dave Smith:
No, I’ve got one just like that. Because of her the alarm clock is the only thing I can keep on my nightstand and that is because the cord is tied down to the back side of the nightstand.
The Cat wants what the Cat wants, and if the Cat wants to sleep on the nightstand, the lamp is just going to have to deal. And, hey, it looks comfy, too.
You know all that stuff in the textbooks about human beings domesticating animals? It is my considered view that an impartial alien, surveying the facts on this particular planet, would conclude that cats have domesticated us…
Stupid lamp was asking for it. That’s all I’m saying…
Cats – an endless supply of craziness. Our newest has decided that sleeping on top of the radio/iPod player in the kitchen is best. Only bad thing is that he also periodically turns on the alarm in the process.
Happy Thanksgiving all!
Oo. What books are those? Zoom. Enhance. Zoom. Enhance. There! A reflection! It looks like…a cat? What the…
I’d say he DID have something against the lamp. Like about 18 pounds of cat body.
My cat has a habit of lying in awkward uncomfortable looking places as well. There’s a little corner on one of my windowsills where she has to lie bent double in order to fit, so obviously it’s one of her favourite places to be. Same goes for lying on the cabling for the xbox, stereo system and tv on the top of a cupboard. Or squeezing between the microwave and tv in order to lie on all the cabling there.
Occasionally she deigns to act normally and lie on a bed, but it’s not often.
The worst part was the very loud noise the lamp made when it fell. Fortunately, Lopsided Cat was able to get back to sleep afterwards.
Lopsided Cat demonstrates the Hermetic principle “As above, so below.”
“The worst part was the very loud noise the lamp made when it fell. Fortunately, Lopsided Cat was able to get back to sleep afterwards.”
I wish this board had a like button. I would like this about a dozen times.
All of my cats have enjoyed sleeping in strange and uncomfortable-looking places. The sink is my second favourite, but the internet has shown me that that’s not so unusual. However, I’ve yet to run across another cat who liked to snuggle up in a cast iron frying pan.
Quick, send in “CSI: Dayton”.