I had a bad cat once; her name was Lilly and she looked like a piece of night.
She was one of those cats who had her own life, which she expected mine to revolve around. She would leap on me and cling on to my jeans to catch a ride down the hall. She would eat off my plate. She had a nightly routine which involved sleeping on my face. And the one time I put a bell on her to stop her from killing birds in the spring, she fell into a depression (real or feigned I am not sure) and refused to move until I took the bell off.
Yet despite all this badness, I loved her with my life. She was my companion and confidante, and I was her pillow. And she was admired for her aggressive/assertive feline attitude. More than once I had friends ask me how they could get a cat as cool as Lilly. The truth is, I think I kinda trained her to be a bitch (cos, yeah, she was a bitch). When she was a kitten and she’d attack me, I used to pick her up and bite her (is that kitten abuse?) and it became a game… we were always very rough-n-tumble, and I think it was my attitude that gave rise to her attitude problem.
However… I have just read an article from the Independent that cites a survey showing that eighty percent of cat owners in the UK think their cats are ‘mischievous’―which, according to my personal lexicon, is a euphemism for ‘bad’. This has made me realise that I am not alone in being the owner of a bad cat. Actually, I always knew that my bad cat was not unique in her badness―my mother’s bad cat hits her on the chin or bites her hand if she feels she isn’t getting enough attention―which is badder than Lilly ever got! But it’s not just me and my mum, okay? It’s not some sort of hereditary cat baddening gene we have. The above mentioned study shows that cat owners all over the UK are the victims of cat badness, and it may not be the owners’ fault. It might just be that cats are a bad bunch, and that’s why cat people love them.
What do you think? Are cats just inherently bad? And are cat lovers just the biggest bunch of masochistic suckers? Leave a comment below and tell us why you love your bad cat.
Words: Sharnon Mentor-King
Image: Jennifer1107, Pixabay
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About the author
Sharnon Mentor-King
Sharnon Mentor-King is a freelance writer and editor from New Zealand, currently living and writing in Dharamsala in northern India. As well as bagging on about street dogs, she also writes bad poetry and excellent young adult fantasy. She has been working on her first novel, A Way to Return, for nearly half her life, and if she ever finishes it, it will be a miracle. Let us pray.
