Field Report from a Cat
From the Field Office of
Dr. Horace Q. Chadwell
AKA “Winkles”
My Dear Colleagues,
They say the first rule of animal research is not to name your subjects, because to do such only colors all observations and conclusions. Name a chimpanzee “Greybeard,” for example, and you’ll instinctively surmise there is great wisdom in the way he shoved that twig so far up his nostril he arched his left brow, forever giving him a quizzical look. But name a lion “Doodles” and he can crack Fermat’s Last Theorem only for you to mutter, “That poor, dumb bastard.”
But here I was, well into my sixth year of field study in the den of a human family, only to find myself violating that very cardinal rule. And how could I not?! Each and every day I sat there—the mute onlooker, the removed witness—as “Middle-Age Spread,” “She’s Too Good for Him” and “Little Girl they Call ‘Chloe’ but I Affectionately Refer to as ‘Will Always Need Bangs’” ate, slept, but mostly complained with clear desperation and heart-breaking consternation that “There’s never freaking anything worth watching on Netflix or Hulu or Disney+ or Amazon or CBS All Access or Peacock or Tubi and even more so on HBO Max! And to think right now we could be watching like 600 freaking movies on disc if someone hadn’t decided that the freaking DVD was outdated despite that fact it was working just fine five freaking years ago!”
I ask you, my esteemed brethren, would you not be moved by such a grievous plight? Would you have been able to remain perched on the carpet tree they bought you maintaining no personal relationship, no familial connection, with these poor individuals whatsoever? I think not!
And so with no indication of a favorable resolution, no sign that their cruel torment was anything but interminable, I broke the second rule of animal research. I became directly involved in my subjects’ lives for the very first time, ending their ceaseless suffering and providing the necessary balm to their pained souls by letting them dangle a string in front of me for two hours until I got bored and walked away.
Then I lost my funding.
Sincerely,
Dr. Horace Q. Chadwell
Winkles
I Could Pee on This and Other Poems by Cats is available from:
I Could Pee on This: Eight Year Later…
This week marks eight years since my first book I Could Pee on This and Other Poems by Cats was published and changed my life. And yes, I am aware how patently ridiculous the latter half of that sentence sounded, but it is written without hyperbole. I also know how odd it is to be celebrating an eighth anniversary (which I am told is bronze or pottery, not feline urine) rather than say a tenth, but 2020 has been essentially one long event horizon at the precipice of a black hole, so you celebrate whatever whenever you can. And of course, none of this would even be remotely possible without everyone who supported the book. I cannot thank you all enough. You really did change my life.
So as part of this celebration I’m going to post something I Could Pee on This-related each day this week, starting with this photo of my cat Leelo so overcome, so absolutely overjoyed with this happy moment that she fell asleep right in the middle of my PR shot.
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