|
There are dog people and there are cat people and that's pretty much it. You might say you prefer ferrets or iguanas
or something else weird, but if you do you're just trying to be different and show everyone how deep and complex you are,
because ferrets are like rats and we all know what we do with rats, and iguanas I'm not sure about but I hear they kind of
taste like chicken. And anyway, if anyone really prefers ferrets or iguanas, then any reasons they might give would
be the same reasons they'd give for liking dogs or cats.
Of course, there are other normal pets like birds or fish or turtles or gerbils, but those you don't really interact
with. You just watch them in their cages or aquariums.
So basically that leaves dog people and cat people, and even if you say you don't like either one, when pressed, you'd
still pick one or the other.
There are big differences.
A dog is like Nick, your best friend at college who doesn't care if you get sick in his car as long as you get home ok.
Or Lisa, your girlfriend in high school who always stood by you and only broke up with you because you were a jerk to her
and kept looking at other girls. Cats are like rich trust-fund babies who look down their noses at you and could care less
whether you dropped dead, or maybe they'll hang around with you if you do exactly what they want to do. You can tell a cat
they're bad and they turn up their noses and walk away; but you tell a dog it's bad and it hangs its head and looks so shamed
that you just know it's wishing it had opposable thumbs so that it could devise some means of killing itself in the hope that
it's death would somehow make up for the disappointment that its life has become.
It's no wonder, then, that dog people are different than cat people. Dog people are average, hard-working folks, emotionally
stable, and with a steady source of income. Cat people are generally unmarried, self-medicating schizophrenics on some type
of public assistance. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that the American Psychiatric Association hasn't established this as a
standard by which to check for clinical insanity:
Subject One
Q: Do you prefer cats or dogs?
A: Cats
Q: Do you experience frequent or infrequent visual or auditory hallucinations? How often?
Q: Do you take pleasure in the thought of being ordered around and having to schedule your life around
the needs of others?
Q: Do you ever go out or socialize or communicate with others besides your cat? Do you experience anxiety
at the very thought of socializing or communicating with others in any manner?
Subject Two
Q: Do you prefer cats or dogs?
A: Dogs
Q: When can we schedule your next appointment?
The difference between cat people and dog people is more than just the difference between cats and dogs. Cat people don't
mind that cats just do whatever they want to do, come and go as they please, all willy-nilly. You might get the sense that
cat-people have no will of their own and they're the kind of folks you can just call up and say "Dinner, 7:00, Alfredo's!
You're paying! Don't be late!" But it doesn't work that way, because while it's true that they have no will of their own,
only the cats get to boss them around. So even when they do go out, all they talk about is their cats. They might even seem
normal at first, but give them a few years. It's an aberrant, progressive disorder that just gets worse with age.
I sometimes wonder if the cats are in control telepathically. If they are, it would explain why the condition has never
been diagnosed or treated, because the doctors are always looking at the people and never at the cats. On the other hand,
there's not much danger that the cats will ever take over the world, because it looks like all they've ever made anyone do
is sit around in their bathrobes not cleaning up.
|
