I love cats. You could even call me a cat person. Have you looked at pictures of cats online? It’s riveting shit. I know some cat ladies. I’ve even been called “cat daddy” before. At the beginning of the Teedra Moses song “You’ll Never Find,” off of her Complex Simplicity album, the opening line is, “Oooooh, cat daaaddy,” and it made me blush because I don’t like attention.
I like cats because cats are like people—if all people were assholes. Cats are the living embodiment of Phonté’s verse on “Slow It Down,” off of The Minstrel Show album: “I want a girl when I want a girl, and when I don’t want a girl, I want a girl who understands that.” Cats are only here to secure the bag; the bag is food, water, your affection (when they want it) and, according to a new study, your death, if you were smaller.
Apparently, the petty purveyors of pfelineness—listen, if pneumonia gets a p, then so can pfeline—exhibit many of the traits of murder cats that would (could) kill us. From an old (but new to me) article at the Orlando Sentinel:
A new study from researchers at the University of Edinburgh shows many parallels between domestic cats and their larger feline brethren, including aggression and neurotic behavior.
The study rated domestic cats as expressing high levels of dominance, impulsiveness and neuroticism, characteristics they share with larger felines like the clouded leopard, African lions, snow leopards and Scottish wildcats. House cats also have high levels of anxiety, insecurity, tension, suspicion and fear of people.
That entire last paragraph is an exercise in “no shit.” Cats are assholes. They break shit, then return to the scene of the crime, sit down and watch you clean up the mess. They look at you and think, “Inferior motherfucker.” Do we know this for sure? No. But we can’t prove it’s wrong, either.
Who with a cat hasn’t thought at least once that their cat would murder them if it had opposable thumbs? Even the cutest cats have “the look.” You know the look. It’s what happens when you piss off your significant other and they make an expression that says, “Why didn’t I keep walking that day? If only the insurance payout was higher than my student loans.” I doubt any of your significant others look like this. They’d never.
But if your significant other were a cat? They totes would. From the Sentinel:
Either way, the results of the study, while not completely a shock, are unnerving, especially a conclusion that domestic cats have a desire to kill humans and would likely do so if they were bigger and stronger.
I know lots of people who hate cats. Even though I love cats, I get it. Cats look into your soul, then piss in your toaster (true story). Cats show up when they want something, then leave when they don’t. If you touch a cat that doesn’t want to be touched, you may die. Cats are like honey badgers; they don’t care, and they don’t give a shit. They irritate easy. They are suspicious.
I remember when I moved once, my cat hid under a bed for three days, only coming out for food and potty. I’m not sure if cats go potty, but today they do. Anyway, my cat came out and definitely looked at me like, “Die, bitch.” I didn’t, but you could feel the tension in the air. My cat was nonplussed; one could even say that my cat was minused.
If you are a cat owner and are surprised by this news, then you have a dog, or maybe even a hamster.
But not a cat.
Cat daddy out.