Lopsided Cat, Considerate in His Way
Posted on November 27, 2011 Posted by John Scalzi 29 Comments
“What’s that? You want to use the desk? Yes, well. Of course you may, at some point, for whatever incomprehensible talking monkey thing it is you do here when you are not scritching me. What? Writing? How adorable. However, at the moment I’m afraid I simply must use this desk. I am doing a very important study on the restfulness of its flat parts. This should only take six to twelve hours. This time. I’ll have to test it several times. This is science. Verification of results is key. Now shoo, talking monkey thing. You’re impeding my acquisition of data.”
You have to admire his commitment. To science!
As a race, I believe, they are all dedicated to the science of rest and it’s related fields.
As I only have one cat now, it’s amazing how much cat my Wacom tablet has. Two minutes after de-catting, it once more is encatted. Perhaps it’s some kind of electromagnetic cattractor.
Please forgive me for cutting to the chase: which rooms of Chez Scalzi has Lopsided Cat not as yet claimed?
Look on the plus side, at least he hasn’t horked on your keyboard.
<crickets>
Well, it’s not like he’s in the way. You can access all the keys on your keyboard without having to reach around any cat bits and you can see all of your screen. But if he becomes problematic, simply point out that the funding for his grant is incumbent on you doing some of this “writing” thing. (OTOH, if you just want to kill zombies, he has a point.)
One of our cats has been conducting a similar test for days now. Apparently she has reached no conclusions, save that it’s fun to keep me from getting the desk clean.
Something is very wrong with me in that my second thought on looking at the picture was that one of the bottles is out of place.
“You have to admire his commitment. To science!”
Oh, indeed. Indeed. In fact, I would suggest a counter-experiment to him: Can a talking monkey lift a domestic feline, carry it some unspecified distance to the nearest grass or concrete, set it in place, retreat a lesser unspecified distance, and firmly shut a door between the two?
Hard to say where you’d get the funding for such research, but it might result in some gratifying data.
Of course, it’s his house. You are allowed to live in it.
Fun with people’s desks, from left to right:
some yellow liquid in a vial
green flash light
small supplement bottle
lube
vitamins on top of a can of cat food
some kind of electronic device getting charged
cat doing the eye-roll thing
right speaker (clearly the feline is hiding the left speaker)
coke zero
cordless phone
more coke zero
mouse (being ignored by feline)
Did anyone else notice that all product labels are facing away?
NO free product placements here!!
He’s not actually physically sitting on your keyboard, sending bizarre tweets for you. That’s pretty considerate.
I like how Lopsided’s colors are in harmony with the desk and wall..
Peter Cibulskis:
That’s not lube. It’s hand sanitizer.
That’s not lube. It’s hand sanitizer.
Two things you never, EVER want to mix up. Speaking theoretically, of course.
Mine only seem to want to perform this sort of test when I’m working, and get quite offended if I have to relocate/reposition them. He is indeed considerate.
Quick question: perhaps I missed this somewhere long ago, before I started reading your blog, but is Lopsided Cat a Maine Coon?
If you keep cat food on your desk, of course the cat will be there.
@Peter Cibulskis: That “yellow liquid in a vial” looks like it could be nail polish or model paint.
Christy:
No, he’s a mixed breed.
Did you take the time to turn all those bottles’ labels away from the camera? Yes, I’m the type of weirdo who notices that. Comes from years of hanging out with a buddy who works for a beer company and insists we always have our labels out in pictures.
Scorpius: I have a desktop computer, and that’s one of the reasons why I got a keyboard skin. If one of the cats wasn’t horking on it, or knocking stuff into it, I was the one being a klutz with my snacks and getting crumbs all over the place.
It’s a shame they don’t make such things (well, none that are effective, as far as I can tell, anyway) for laptops–hubby saw mine and wanted one right away, so we bought him one “designed for laptops”. Instead of a nice, heavy-weight material molded to a specific make/model, it was a “generic laptop skin”. As far as we could determine, it was a small sheet about the consistency of plastic wrap (like you’d use for leftovers), with very loose elastic bands basically glued to either end. FAIL.
All cats are against literacy. Just try reading a newspaper on the floor, with a cat nearby, and see what happens. So presumably the prevention of writing is a good way to solve the problem at the source.
I used to have one that would climb on my chest every time I tried to read on my bed. Then it became a negotiation for how much room I needed to focus vs. how close to my head she could settle.
Some dogs have even been recruited into the program.
What’s the deal with Lopsided Cat and the hard, cold surfaces? The other day he *scored* a nightstand surface to nap on and seemed quite content there…with a soft, comfy bed only inches away.
Dude. My boss uses the word “scritching” when referencing his cat(s). Is that a 30+ thing?
You’er sure it’s not a case of: why are you looking at that square thing full of squiggles when you could be looking at ME!
Occupy Scalzi!
Your stranglehold on kibble must end!
@barbinbandon, perhaps, given that he is a very furry cat, he likes the contrast? I can imagine shorter-haired cats preferring the bed.
You should try to work with 3 cats in the house — they have an entirely different interpretation of “lap-top” than I. There may be no cats visible when I sit down but they suddenly appear in the same space. The smallest one uses the transformer as a heating pad while the others flick fur onto the keyboard. I gave up trying to paint anywhere except a tiny workroom — everything I did had cat hair stuck to it. Finally may make some watercolor paper with cat combings dispersed in the pulp.
I come to the Scalzi novels rather late — picked up Fuzzy Nation at the library, which led me back to the Old Man’s War series. But maybe that was good, as I am able to read the four books in sequence with no waiting for the next to be published. They take me back to memories of the days of Campbell and Asimov. I’m 75 now and perhaps I should look for the local CDF recruiting office. Sure could use a body up-grade. Thanks, John, for whole lot of pleasure.
My cat is also performing valuable experiments in inertia. At least Lopsided Cat is not studying it on the bed, where my feet belong, while I attempt to sleep.
Ah yes, cats seem to be far ahead of us monkey-things in their dedication to science. Mine are still trying to perfect the art of cloning themselves. (Failed attempts result in the myriad dust-bunnies circulating around the house.) And I have determined that my Siamese girl was appointed the “Science Officer” since she appears to be required to take numerous samples of the shower water after I’m done. She also watches me to make sure the samples will be fresh and complains if I take too long in the shower. No doubt, she doesn’t want me making her late for some group napping experiment.