Curiosity Cured the Cat

We have all heard the maxim, "Curiosity killed the cat." Visions of cats electrocuting themselves by biting through extension cords, falling out of trees onto hard concrete from forty feet and not landing on their feet but instead on their heads, and getting smashed by cars while toying with a dead mouse on the road, come to mind.

I don't know the leading causes of accidental deaths among the feline class but the saying of curiosity being a sometimes deadly thing with cats surely is based on a tragic history. I just used my imagination to envision a curious cat coming to his end through deadly inquisitiveness. It is appointed once unto a cat to live and then comes the judgment. No nine lives (re-in-cat-nation?) for either cats or people. Although, I think the live nine lives refers to a cat who should have died after doing something stupid but escaped the claws of the reaper through dumb luck, maybe losing a paw or an eye through a misdeed, but living to mew another day. And sleep for 20 hours daily.

I had a cat named Barnabas for about ten years. He wasn't particularly curious. He was chill (like a dog with no bark) except when I was cooking and eating food. Then he was intensely engaged in the happenings. When I first got him from the Humane League as a stray, he hopped on my stove when I was making dinner the first night in my apartment in Lancaster City. I swatted him away like a tennis ball, sending him flying through the air and he hid behind the stove for a day or two cowering in fear of his new 6'8" owner with anger issues. I reflected on my harshness in hitting him and I didn't like what it revealed about me. A cruelty to something living. He was just being curious. Heck, if I was a cat, I would also wonder what was for dinner and hope that some of it was for me. Who knows how he was raised by its previous owner.  Maybe he was allowed to hop on the stove and inspect the vittles. I felt bad, as well I should have. Barnabas finally came out into the light because I lured him with a bowl of cat food. I never hit him again. Like the adage says, he also never hopped on the hot stove again. Ever, at least not in my presence.

I learned a lot from Barnabas. He was a great teacher. He took joy in the simple things...a scratch on the head, a warm bed, soaking in the sunshine on the windowsill, and a bowl of food--a greasy concoction that he had to eat because of his urinary track getting clogged, a disease that did him in after ten years in this world. I still blame the clotting cat litter for the medical problem...I think it got up into him and clogged him internally. That early morning where I said good-bye to Barnabas was one of the saddest days of my life.  It is said the God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and this cat Barnabas taught me a lot about myself and gave me an orientation towards something else besides my own pathetic self-centeredness.

But, back to my major point: Does curiosity kill the cat? Yes, indeed. it does. But, a cat would not be a cat unless he/she was curious. If a cat couldn't be curious, it would be already dead. In the picture above, I discovered last Saturday these two neighbors in my kitchen acting like they owned the place. I had left my back sliding door open so that I could take out the trash. I know that it is hardly sanitary to roll the trash can through the living room but I really had not the desire to take the can around out back in a circuitous route. The quickest route is right through the house and since in my house it is my rules, I planned to wheel it through rather than around. I went to also open the front door and that is when the cats snuck in the back. I caught them in the act. They were looking to be fed...I am fairly certain that my previous tenants created a pattern of feeding. The cats look well-taken care of and I think they belong to my neighbor who lets them roam a bit. I shouted at these two trespassers and they shot out the back as if they were on fire. However, they returned for most of the morning, pressing their faces of the screen, to see if I was open for business. It made me laugh. Rather than being angry, I was amused by their antics.

I ain't going to feed them. I don't want to foster a welfare-like dependence. Yet, I can't fault them for trying. They after all are cats. And curious. And hungry.