Cleanliness is next to Catliness…

Did I mention that cats spend ninety percent of their time asleep? They can be rather delicate creatures and subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of a cat who suffered from insomnia. Yes, they like a snooze - but there’s no snooze button on a cat who wants his or her breakfast.

And after breakfast – what then? Why a good wash of course…

“Some people say that us kitties are sneaky, evil, and cruel – all true, and we have many other fine qualities as well, one of them being cleanliness – we must be clean, and as the saying goes ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’. Thousands of years ago, we cats were worshipped as gods, so as we say - ‘cleanliness is next to catliness’. We’ve never forgotten that cat-god thing, even though those hissing dogs seem to have done. Cats are SO much smarter than dogs; who ever heard of getting eight cats to pull a sled through snow… mush, meoww, mush, meoww, mush… I don’t think seoww!

After all, dogs come when they're called, whilst us cats take a message and get back to you later, maybe... ‘after the tone please leave a message…ddddrrrrrrr…I’m sorry, your call has hissing disconnected. After the tone please leave a hissing message… I’m sorry, your call…’

Hisfault and Foodies think that they own me, but nobody owns a cat. In our eyes, all things belong to cats, particularly ourselves – talking of which, this cat’s eye needs a good lick and paw. There, that’s better, no sticky-wicky, gungey-wungey, now.

I’ve always worked on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want, and it seems to have worked okay so far - I have food, shelter, love, autonomy, a soft bed, respect, a collar, no fleas, strokes, a brush, my own chair by the fire, two hundred guineas per annum… Dogs believe they are human, but cats believe they are God - did I mention that already?

There…all clean, as clean as a whistle, which, if I were a dog and whistled, I’d come to. But I’m not, I’m a cat. I’m Misty the cat, my own me, nobody’s hissing pet unless I want to be.

Collette, the writer once said ‘time spent with cats is never wasted’ and she was right. Perhaps I should start charging for my time? Mmmm, I’ll have to think about that. How does three kittie-treatie sticks an hour sound?

There, all clean, and smart, and ready for another sleepies. I’m only up to eighty-two percent today and washing up is such hard work - I heard Hisfault say so yesterday evening after supper…”

Yesterday I told Gaynor (in a moment of madness after washing up cat dishes endlessly for over twenty minutes) that it was either me or the cat – and do you know what she said? She said that she’d miss me sometimes, but only when Misty wasn’t around for company. Oh well…