Published: May 13, 2008 10:33 am         

Cat tales: As the fan blades turn

We have two cats because the wife and the children didn’t want to split up the brother and sister who seemed to be having so much fun at the shelter.

“They looked so happy together,” Becca, the wife, said as she explained why I was looking at two cats rather than the one I had grudgingly agreed to accept.

As it turned out, the sister doesn’t like the brother because the brother, which we named Africa, is an idiot.

First of all, he can’t blink. Believe me, we’ve tried to make him blink. His eyes are always as big as saucers and his permanent expression looks like: “HELP ME! I CAN’T BLINK!”

Needless to say, we’ve nicknamed him Blinky.

Sister, Australia (mom’s name was Asia), seems perpetually flustered by her brother, who does interesting things like run into walls, stare at fan blades going around and around and eat like a dog, gulping as fast as possible. Unlike a dog, he often throws up because he ate too fast.

Australia usually has an expression on her face that looks like: “Geez, he is such an idiot.”

He’s also not a very good cat. He almost got eaten by Conrad, the neighbor’s dog, because he doesn’t have good balance. First of all, Africa ran toward Conrad rather than away, then he fell off the railing that would have kept him safe. He got back on the railing, then fell off again. I am not making this up. Conrad then picked up Africa lovingly with his clenched jaw and shook him like a rag doll. Africa did not blink.

Since bringing them home, Australia has eaten everything that can’t run away and turned into a fat sack of cat. Needless to say, we’ve nicknamed her Tiny. She also has an intestinal problem: every time she uses the litter box we have to call the haz-mat team. They’ve set up a tent next to our house to save time.

Australia was supposed to belong to Sara, the daughter. Africa was for Matt, the son. Needless to say, Australia hates everybody except Matt and Africa … well, Africa can’t remember who he belongs to so he just follows anybody who might be doing something interesting. Like watching fan blades.

The son, who has really good ideas on occasion (but who also likes to watch fan blades), had a good idea when he obtained something that shines a bright red dot on whatever surface it is pointed at. I think it’s a pointer.

The son points the pointer at the floor and makes the red dot go in circles. Africa chases it. This will go on for hours because Africa has not figured out he can’t catch a dot. Africa got so tired from chasing the dot one time, he literally fell over. Then he watched the fan blades go around.

To be honest, I often feel like joining him. He does seem happy.



Rick Hoover writes for Stillwater (Okla.) NewsPress. E-mail rhoover@stwnewspress.com.