Cats are truly the best possible pets. Except maybe dogs. In any case, cats are wonderfully layered characters that brighten the human experience tenfold.
As a seven-year owner of a cat, and a six-year owner of a second cat—and as a person who had never previously considered the notion of sharing a residence with cats until my wife made me get one—I want to point out that cats are unreal creatures. But men owning cats is often stigmatized as a non-masculine activity and that sucks because it means that less cats get adopted. That’s as misguided as people not adopting black cats because of bad luck superstitions, which happens and is more unfortunate than Joe Paterno apologists.
Let’s huddle up in a minute, but first here are nine fascinating tidbits about cats.
Let’s go in for a sec. I just hit you with nine hot facts via an embedded video. Let’s keep the tab open: Here are nine reasons you should go adopt a cat in a shelter this Martin Luther King Jr. weekend.
- They are so easy to care for! You feed them in the morning and in the evening and that’s the only day-to-day interfacing that cats require.
- Cat food is like $10 and you buy it once a month maybe. It’s my experience that wet food makes cats puke and shit everywhere so don’t waste money on that.
- Ideally you want to play with them once a day for 10-15 minutes but they don’t remind you if you forget. Remember, play equals prey. Make the cat run around and pretend to hunt. Let it win. You can’t really wrestle with them like dogs because it’ll mess with their heads.
- As a reporter with a chaotic desk, I can say that making it a point to clean the litter box every other day keeps you organized. It builds a healthy routine that seems to lead me toward sustained productivity. Not that it’s any fun, but it’s by far the most unpleasant part of harboring a cat and it’s nothing.
- All of the cool cats are the cheap kind that are ready to be adopted. America’s morons will pay hundreds of dollars for a rare breed of cat like the Peterbald that looks like Gollum. Tuxedo cats, short-haired tabbys, black cats—those little fellas are basically free right now because America’s shelters are all like, “Look, kid, just take him before his mother eats him, all right?”
- Cats are scientifically proven to bring chill vibes. They’ll curl up with your laundry and sleep on it. I remember working security once alongside a broke musician in his 40s who had recently gotten divorced. He was in a rough patch personally and got stuck with his old roommate’s cat and the companionship got him through a miserable winter, he said.
- Speaking of the cold, this Russian cat realized a baby had been left out in a box, and kept it warm so it wouldn’t die.
- Unlike tiny dogs, you don’t have to put cats on leashes and walk them around your apartment complex looking like a dumb asshole.
- Make no mistake, they aren’t decorative fish either. They are hyper-intelligent American snipers that can see your soul, bang on the window to wake you up, open doors, and badger you into giving them small bits of pork from the frying pan. They also seem to understand that you have decided to protect them from the cold and the coyotes in Central Texas. There’s a mutual respect in place manifested by a fulfilling, sustainable partnership.
Photo via a.khongpak/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
