IFAQs about cats

In the interest of helping society, we here at yourish.com have developed a list of questions about cats that would ordinarily not get answered, or at least, certainly not get answered the way we answer them. This is the first in a series. Feel free to send your questions to meryl -at- mylastname – dot – com if you’d like this series to continue.

Why do cats sleep in the sun?
Why do bears crap in the woods? Why do babies cry? Why is the sky blue? Come on, be honest. If you could spend 18-20 hours a day sleeping, you’d do it, too. Who wants to work?

Do cats get sunburn? Are they at risk for skin cancer from UV rays?
Yes, as a matter of fact, they do. Gracie and Tig were both black cats when I got them. Over the course of their lives, their habit of sleeping in the sun has burned their skin and fur to the orange color you see in recent pictures. (Gracie actually used to be a tuxedo, but is now orange-and-white.)

I found pawprints all over the hood of my car. Should I be worried?
Yes. While many cats merely like to sleep on the warm engine of a parked car, some have more nefarious schemes in mind. Lately, I’ve had to repeatedly check my brake lines. Tig is trying to blackmail me into giving him more tunafish, and he’s been slashing the brake lines from time to time. He thinks I haven’t got a clue, but my hidden camera caught him fleeing the scene only this morning.

Why do cats like tunafish so much, anyway?
It carries within it deep species memories, from the days when cats were cats and humans were humans, and when they met, it often ended in cats eating humans. Cats have what Jack London used to call “racial memories,” wherein they could remember prehistoric times. Back then, cats frolicked on the shorelines, waiting for the hapless tuna to crawl up onto the beaches to spawn, and then pounced, eating fresh tuna from the sea. Indeed, hidden deep within the vaults at Starkist are the fossil records of just such a scene, kept under lock and key for fear that the current generation of domestic kitties would never again obey their human masters if the evidence got out. There’s a rumor that it’s the subject of Dan Brown’s next novel, The Kitty Code.

Why don’t cats do tricks and come when they’re called? Dogs do!
Dogs are Communists. The dog is always too willing to follow the strongest leader, a.k.a. the alpha dog. Dogs are weak, cowardly, chicken-hearted collectivists, eager to please anyone and anything that is physically stronger. Cats, on the other hand, are red-white-and-blue Americans. They are individuals and individualists, fending for themselves if they must, but canny enough to trick humans into giving them food and cleaning up after them. The fact that the United States now has more cats than dogs per household is proof that a country is only as great as its pets. Even a crap artist like Andrew Lloyd-Weber recognized the superiority of cats. There have been exactly zero major Broadway hits about dogs.

Most American presidents had dogs in the White House. This is because in general, a president is unable to handle anything less than complete submission of his subordinates. Bill Clinton’s cat was a facade. He gave it to his secretary when he left office, thus proving that he never really liked cats to begin with.

Occasionally, you hear about cats being taught tricks, but this is generally a deliberate act on the part of Cat Nation. Some are sacrificed so that the many can save face.

Is it true that cats make good snipers?

Yes. They are taught how to handle firearms from a very early age. So watch your manners around cats. And if you can’t watch your manners, then watch your back. And have an up-to-date will.