Friday, July 31, 2009

Cool Cat vs Cooler Metal

The terrible, terrible Rowan Atkinson vehicle Johnny English* had a good tagline:

*Terrible because it's Rowan in Mr Bean mode instead of Blackadder mode.

That's Neutrino. He spends his entire life in a flat filled with things that are either twenty times his size, made of solid metal, or both, and he has no conception of the idea of losing a fight. When we hold him helplessly in the air at arms length, as far as he's concerned he has us right where he wants us. Hell, he's just beating up the air until we come back into range.

This inability to process anything that's not his will leads to some odd behaviour. He tries to jump into the fridge every single time I close it, and rather than the usual scoop-hurl-and-close I thought I'd teach him that perhaps jumping into closing metal doors was a bad idea.

(Those of you with cats are already laughing at my use of the word "teach", but I continue.)

Instead of diving in to save him I gently closed the door until it was holding him firmly in place. He wiggled. He struggled. He yowled. He did all three and, his options exhausted, proceeded to repeat these options in random combinations for a while before going still.

Figuring he'd learned that crushing metallic doors fifty times bigger than him were an incom-cat-ible location I opened it a crack to let him out - and he dove further in! In his mind, being held helpless for two minutes in steel jaws of moderately chilled deathgrip was all part of his cunning plan. His scheme was to outwit an immovable object by allowed it to immove him for as long as it wanted, and at no point does it, can it, occur to him that he's come second place in a competition of two.

That's our cat.

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