Thursday, January 15, 2009

Born free needy.

Cats are the great writer's pet because they are aloof and self-possessed and solitary and not needy, whining, crybaby attention hoes* that will scratch at the door to the office for over a fricken' hour straight while piteously mewling the whole fricken' time.

Or something like that.


(And then when you go out into the front part of the house, she just looks at you with this "What? Did you want something?" expression and wanders off. It's enough to make me start chanting the mantra Gunsmith Bob uses around cats... catonricewithgravy, catonricewithgravy, catonricewithgravy...)


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*According to Dictionary.com, the proper plural of "ho" is "hos", but that doesn't look right.

20 comments:

staghounds said...

One of my favorite witness examination moments-

Witness- "Then she started calling me all kinds of Bees and Aitches."

Staghounds- "I understand what as a garden implement..."the B stands for, but what do you mean to say with the Aitches?"

W - "Hoes, Aitch for Hoe."

S- "So, after she referred to you as an agricultural implement...

I swear to short skirts, the submit word is

"hormatic"

Anonymous said...

Tam - check out the editorial in today's Indy Fishwrapper/Gannett Red Star. Sigh.

Tam said...

Is it worth freezing my butt off to retrieve?

Canthros said...

I imagine Noah was referring to this: "Guns on campus: Not a comforting thought"

Anonymous said...

Well, this wasn't posted under the Dead Meat and Yum categories, so they managed a reprive somehow...

Less said...

Yeah, but does your cat force you to drink beer?

CastoCreations said...

I miss my kitties but they're much happier (and safer) over at my MILs. The doggies just stare with pathetic eyes when they want something.

Zendo Deb said...

So, how is the writing going?

Anonymous said...

The dogs: sleep by the desk, chew on toys, entertain each other, occasionally park by the desk and wag hopefully for a scritch.

The cat: jump on my desk, yell, park himself in front of my monitor, stretch to cover screen, wash himself furiously in front of said monitor, push things off my desk to amuse himself, scream defiance and jump right back on my desk as soon as I get fed up and grab him by the scruff and remove him, lather, rinse, REPEAT...

As a writer's pet, the Akitas win paws down.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Ditto LabRat, except we don't have dogs.

Anonymous said...

You can be happy that your cats aren't fixated on P**ing and p**ping outside. Our squirrel-killer makes a nuisance of himself at the doors, meowing and scratching and ringing the bells (on a string on the doorknob) until you let him out.

The instant the sub-zero air hits him in the face, he turns around and positively GLARES, then trundles off to find a spot. Three minutes later (just long enough to get back in the chair, with book and beer in hand) he's up on the windowsill, wanting to get back in.

It's not a bad as Heinlein's "Door Into Summer", though. We've only got a back and front door on the house, and he doesn't always insist on checking both to see if it's still winter outside both of them.

John Hardin said...

It's not that the cat wants in to see you - all cats are morally offended by a closed door, which they are always on the wrong side of.

Mark said...

Yes, cats are great for home-working artists, too. Because you don't want an attention-seeking missile leaping up onto the keyboard, dribbling, meowing eight times a minute, clawing, insisting on being petted and generally acting like a six-pount memetic jammer 24/7.

*sigh*

Unknown said...

As Robert Heinlein said, "Never try to out-stubborn a cat".

Zdogk9 said...

One of the great misconceptions is that cats say meow. I'll grant that it sounds like that. Cats are unable to pronounce N, What they are really saying is ME NOW!

Anonymous said...

For millions of years there were no doors in the way of cats. Suddenly there were.

A cat's pre-frontal cortex is only a bit more than half the size of a dog's, so it is not capable of dealing with the problem like a canine. So you'll never train the behavior out of a cat.

However, if you breed successive litters, and hold the kittens in front of a door while saying, "IT'S A DOOR--JUST DEAL WITH IT OK", you might be able to steer the path of evolution after a few hundred thousand generations or so.

Anonymous said...

Tam - Nah, it's not worth going outside for.

John - Yes. I was...link-challenged this morning.

Anonymous said...

"Catonricewithgravy..." heh. When's the last time you and Gunsmith Bob had Chinese take out? ;)

Anonymous said...

It's just like "Ho Hos"... which is perhaps the nastiest junk food I've ever tasted.

B Smith said...

"...and not needy, whining, crybaby attention hoes..."

Clearly, you have never encountered the cat that owns my aunt.

Less---The cat DRIVES me to drink... and not in a good way.