Love Me, Love My Cat

They say you can tell a lot about the person by the way they behave towards animals.

I'd like to think that my cat, Biscuit, has super-feline powers and can, in an instant, ascertain the quality and character of a man within seconds of meeting him.

However, if Charles Manson were to visit my Madison home, Biscuit would glue himself to his blood-soaked limbs and ask to sit on his lap. In short, Biscuit is no judge of character. He has loved them all - from PAL to Jesus to Machine Gun Man.

So I'll have to resort to judging the man's attitude towards the cat as yet another measurement of his inadequacy.

Biscuit doesn't just sleep on my bed, he sleeps on my HEAD. Machine Gun Man takes issue with this and not only tosses Biscuit out the door ("fly, kitty, fly!"), he then LOCKS the door, as if the cat might sprout opposable thumbs, rear up on his hind legs and open the door to claim his rightful spot on my scalp. What MGM fails to realize is that Biscuit is the Man of the House and HE is the visitor.

Mr. Nipple Fetish (remember him?) was terrified of Biscuit. He locked out the cat saying the thought of having him in the room gave him night terrors. (In hindsight, the thought of spending the evening with him gave ME night terrors.)

Spaceman is a complete softy when it comes to animals. He lives in a "below grade" apartment so that his now deceased beloved elderly Golden Labs could easily get in and out the door. Upon meeting Biscuit, he said he was not a cat person, although he was very friendly towards the furry guy. He also didn't dead bolt the door to bar him from the room.

The next week he cut a date short so he could go tend to a stray cat that had gone on an unintended ride on his engine block. The next day, he took the stray to the vet to have his burned paws and belly tended to (the image this conjures up, of the cat clinging koala-like to the engine, is awful). He put posters all around town and ultimately found a new home for the stray. If only I could get him to pay as much attention to me. Maybe if I crawl up on his engine block and sustain minor injuries.

Mr. Hawaiian Lai has two cats who were very cool. I met him right after he had had them both groomed for summer (their both being long-haired) and their fur had the consistency of a chamois cloth. I think I liked the cats better than him. The cats slept on the bed and there was no dead bolting involved. He considered getting a third cat but thought somehow it might lead some to question his hetero-sexuality (although personally I have never heard of cat-ownership being one of the markers of sexual preference, who knows).

So alas, looking at this pattern, there is no correlation between cat ownership, Biscuit-worship, or cat tolerance and whether or not a date is going to work out with me. How easy it would be otherwise. I'd just buy the subscriber list to Cat Fancy magazine and voila, instant match.

I'll just have to go on my hunch, that how a person treats an animal is likely a good indicator of how they treat just about everyone else.