What Regret Looks Like, Cat Division, January 10, 2019
Posted on January 10, 2019 Posted by John Scalzi 24 Comments
“I had not been sufficiently informed of the recent temperature drop and resulting snow, which was not here previously. Please let me back into the house.”
(Spoiler: I let her back in. Eventually.)
The next ten days will be at near-freezing temperatures. I expect a lot of indoor cat time. As usually happens in the winter.
Our cat is very put out that we don’t flip the switch and turn summer back on when he wants to go outside.
I bet Smudge did not go out at all!
Do they go around looking for the Door Into Summer?
Pam, my dog does that: scratches at back door, I open it, he sticks his nose out, feels the cold, and comes back in – then goes to the front door and scratches at it…
Look at her whisker pads close to her nose. See the way they’re pinched in toward the center? A sign of discomfort. Literally (“actually” not “literally”?) a ‘pained’ look.
You monster. Make it warm outside again at once.
priceless pic and fantastic title for the photo ..thanks
Oh, the shivery little thing – you did open a can of tuna for her when you relented and let her back in, right?
It is weather like this that makes me grateful we live in an area where we cannot safely let cats outdoors (because we’re a block away from two very busy highways). They stay safe and warm indoors, and I don’t need to keep jumping up to let them in, let them out, let them in, let them out, etc.
The catsicle looks displeased.
I think a better title would be “What reproach looks like.”
Our cats are indoor creatures. Despite that fact, one of them is quite certain he’s a dachshund with a short muzzle and improbably long tail and tries to go out with the dogs. Every. Single. Time. This may have something to do with the fact that he was raised with a socially maladroit dachshund in a warm climate for the first few months of his life.
“Mistakes were made. Let’s agree to move on.”
Reminiscent of, if slightly less threatening, than this: https://external-preview.redd.it/e4zA86_5GfyeijGHo6dnPW4YFrdfnet0wjeVggh3ECc.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=580966032c2430abf7e94a2b06c2148eb6b69d96
I can hear the cat saying that with a soft southern accent.
Garrison Keillor channeling Willie Nelson:
To all the cats I’ve known before
Who tried to come in my back door
And then they turned about
And tried to go back out
So they could come back in once more.
Our cat’s monologue as he glowers at us through the window: “What were you people THINKING letting me sneak out the door between your legs?? Do you know how cold it is out here? Are you all insane? Just open the window and let me in, and I promise never to mention it again.
You could try teaching the cats to walk through walls.
Our cats will happily sit outside for hours even when the ambient temperature is below the triple point of H2O. They have the option to come in whenever they want but they get very frustrated when the flap is blocked off while one of them is confined due to illness/surgery.
One of my cats used to accompany that look with a silent meow and you could see his breath as he did it. Bonus point – I lived in a second floor apartment at the time and he had to go up a tree to give me the look through a window.
Humour aside, cats have an instinctive drive to patrol their territory frequently; so, the reason they try to go out then try to come almost straight back in again is because they need to check the garden but don’t want to.hang around.
My cat keeps looking for Heinlein’s door into summer. When he feels the cold air from outside, he starts shaking his paws as if he’s stepped in water.
The dog version of this is: “You opened the wrong door. I wanted the pleasant, warm place. This place is cold and wet. What is wrong with you?”
I interpret that look as “What hath thou wrought, dear trickster human? I withhold full expression of my righteous wrath in hope you will initiate amicable resolution.”
I used to live in a house with three doors: front, back, and side. We had two cats at the time. During bad weather, each of them would (separately) go to each door, repeatedly, looking for the one that had nice weather outside.
I’m not sure if their disappointment/disgust was a backward compliment (“Humans are supposed to be able to control the weather!”) or a glimpse into feline understanding of multiverse theory that, alas, humans are unable to grasp and use in any meaningful way.
Kind of off topic. Just noticed that you use WordPress for the site. I have a friend who is trying to get WordPress to work on his bulletin board, and there is some kind of idiot naughty word filter. Someone could not post with the term “naked truth” because “naked” is apparently naughty. Do you or any of the reglalr posters here know how to turn it off?