Our cat, Hank, decided at 5:15 this morning that my wife and I should definitely get out of bed.
He communicated this by repeatedly jumping on the bed, meowing, and scratching my wife’s face. Normally, I would think this was no big deal, except she insisted on giving a running commentary of it to me which interfered with my sleep.
After a few minutes of this, Pulao got up and closed the door to the bedroom, which was a good idea, but Hank doesn’t quite grasp the closed-door concept. He scratched the door, rattled it, and meowed; all much more loudly than you would expect a medium-sized animal to be able to do.
Luckily, he has a short attention span, so after ten minutes of scratching, rattling, and meowing, he grew tired of it and wandered off through the apartment.
But unluckily, Hank has a very short attention span, so after about 5 minutes of wandering through the apartment he thought: “What was I doing? Oh yeah.” Scratch. Rattle. Meow. Repeat indefinitely.
This made me think about when I have children, and how Hank disturbing my sleep might be like having a baby.
But really, more like a special baby, who will never learn to talk, or feed himself, or draw birthday cards for me very well.
So, Cats v. Babies. Thoughts?
9 Responses to Our cat is like a kid, only more dumb
I think cats are very much like babies in that I fully intend to deal with crying, disruptive babies by shutting them out of my room, closing the door, and pretending I don’t hear the pitiful noises they make on the other side.
Get rid of Howard and have some babies already!
Cats are NOT like babies in that you can leave them home alone all day without having to pay someone $15/hr to watch them.
And also, if they eat your plants, you don’t have to call Poison Control. The cat’s factory-installed puke mechanism will take care of things.
That cat is scary. He did the scratch-rattle-meow when I was staying at your place once. It sounded like a cranky baby elephant was head butting the door. But is that worse than a baby? I think not.
Baby elephants are so much cooler than babies!
To wit: there is the awesome song composed by Henry Mancini called Baby Elephant Walk: http://www.reelclassics.com/Audio_Video/Music7q/clips/mancini_babyelephantwalk_clip.mp3
vs.
Amy Grant’s Baby Baby
Q. E. D
If you need to listen to both songs to help decide the Baby Elephant v. Baby Baby debate (and I hope that you don’t), here is a clip from Amy Grant:
http://mfile.akamai.com/3184/wm2/muze.download.akamai.com/2890/us/uswm2/532/106532_1_02.asx?obj=v30715
Enjoy! Sort of.
If you want to get a better idea of what having a baby is like with out actually having a baby, then might I suggest a puppy? Unlike a cat, they do not come litter-box-trained and they do not sleep nearly as much. And you definitely cannot leave them alone all day if you care at all about anything that you own. But on the plus side, they are adorable, cute and cuddly and they won’t get moody and sassy when they’re teens. Nor will they ever wreck your car.
If your baby ever repeatedly attacks my toes from three in the morning till six, I’ll be impressed. Wouldn’t it be nice if your baby just slept in the window all day, though?
That sassy puppy wrecked my car! Nope, don’t hear that much.
I think babies might attack toes — they have opposeable thumbs — but might not be that big of deal, cause they have less teeth. And fewer claws.