Tilting the Void

Looking over my Theroux post, I must definitely say I am indeed a cat person, as he describes in his essay. Just as he named his geese and found that the geese came to resemble their names, Oscar has also grown into his. More than that, I talk to my cats when I'm home alone, not because I think they understand much more than "food" and "here", but because it has the effect of calming me and allowing my mind to focus on other things while I babble mindlessly. God help me if anyone should overhear--they rightly would feel the urge to vomit, without a doubt. The babble, however, is not for them or for anyone else but my cats, who seem unconcerned by it at the very least.

I don't ascribe Oscar with human emotion, but I know he has feline feelings; he demands in or out, wails for his breakfast (he just woke me up at 6:45 this morning, howling under my bedroom window), and he is frightened by foolish things. He gets bored and subsequently willfully naughty--he knows, for instance, that scratching on the living room carpet will get him a swat, and yet he does so occasionally when there's nothing else to do just so he can sprint with his tail in the air when he hears me approaching with wrath. Like any cat, he has no remorse or guilt for anything (strictly human emotions). He loves a good pet. I do think he has some affection for my husband and I--or at least a deep familiarity, born of having raised him from a kitten--and because we feed him and give him treats and spoil him with scraps from the table, he appears to possess a definite sense of entitlement. Because he's spoiled and indulged, he is a trifle neurotic--and in regards to a cat, that's not a huge stretch. Even at six years old and the size of a small terrier, he will nurse on a person's earlobe given half the chance; he kneads and drools mindlessly; he will jump in and occupy your lap at the least possible opportunity, so that you're constantly scraping him off just to get up for another cup of coffee.

I unabashedly love this cat. I don't care a hoot whether that feeling is returned--although he is (for a cat) remarkably demonstrative with his own affection, especially when he's about to get some tasty treat. That is cattishness (as Theroux wrote of 'gooseishness). I perhaps love Oscar even more for his feline behavior and foibles. Undoubtedly it's a symbiosis; he gets food and shelter and ridiculous attention, while I get to pet and scold and cuddle. I don't have children and I wouldn't begin to suggest a cat makes any kind of substitute for the love and affiliation with one's own offspring--cats are cats. They'll never grow up and leave for college, but they'll never carry on a conversation with you or provide you with grandchildren, either. The most they can do at holidays is pull down the Christmas tree. However, I won't pretend that Oscar doesn't feed some basic Freudian need in me--I am fully aware of that odd bent as well, although I can't abide people who call their pets their 'children'.

That's just wrong on some deep level--they're NOT children. Pets in this country have more spent on them in food and medicine and clothing than many children receive in poor nations--another sign of American excess and extravagance, to my thinking. There are children in this country that can't afford to have dental attention--let alone cosmetic orthodontic care--and yet, it is the growing fashion in some circles to have one's dog's teeth straightened. I begin to wonder if that isn't definitely a sign of a deep moral decay.

I don't think Oscar is anything other than what he is. I don't hold it against him for thinking chiefly with his gut. But I am glad he thinks of us as his home and his 'pride', if you will; I'm glad he trusts us implicitly enough to sleep on our bed, and I do feel his presence enriches and adds color to our human lives. And I think that is the real function of pets that Theroux also found with his geese, too.