Americans Like to Pledge That We Are One Nation. Indivisible but There Are a Lot of Things

The Cat Show

Americans like to pledge that we are one Nation. Indivisible…but there are a lot of things besides politics and religion that divide us. There is no one thing about which we are more divided than we are on whether we like or dislike cats.

I went to the International Cat show in Madison Square Garden Friday. About 800 cats showed up, too. These are not your average, everyday, common, ordinary alley cats. I never knew there were so many different kinds of cats. Big cats…small cats … beautiful cats, homely cats.

It is obvious when you watch them together that people who like cats, like cats better than cats like the people who like them. Cats are absolutely indifferent to the most loving owner. Owners find this loveable about cats.

At the show, owners constantly displayed an affection that was not reciprocal. A kiss is just a kiss but a kiss is nothing to a cat. Cats just don’t give a damn.

The show was like one big beautiful parlor. Obsessive owners groomed their cats incessantly.

Rooney: “How much time do you spend on yourself and how much on the cat?”

Woman: “About an hour and a half on myself and about an hour and a half on the cat. Equal time…”

Rooney: “You look better to me.”

Owners philosophize about cats…projecting their own fantasies into the imaginary psyches of their animals. They endow cats with mystical qualities cats don’t have.

Man: “They are more honest than people.”

Woman: “You have to earn a cat’s love.”

Man: “Cats are touchers…They touch with the mind…they touch with the body.”

Man: “They take life on their terms, not yours…”

1 Woman: “Persians are a very laid-back breed…”

Man: “There are certain cats that will come to you because you don’t like them…”

Vet: “That is the mystique of the cat…”

In a cat boutique, owners could buy rat-shaped catnip 貓薄荷 to provide their pets the ecstasy of a vicarious 替代的 kill. They have toothbrushes with which to clean the cat’s teeth afterwards.

A lot of owners gave their cats pillows that looked as if they were made of cat fur to me. You’d think a cat would object. Worse than cooking lamb in its mother’s milk.

One woman even had a long sweater of suspect origin. Looked like cat to me.

We didn’t stay to see who the top cat was but reading the newspaper the next day, we found we were lucky. We had taken pictures of Nobu, the grandest puddy cat of them all.

The judges all thought Nobu was the cat’s meow.

I was indifferent.

From Andy Rooney, Years of Minutes, pp. 406-407.