I knew a mustachioed old man who prefaced nearly every noun with “some nice,” which made just about everything at least somewhat nice.
Let’s have some nice asparagus.
Let’s listen to some nice Neil Diamond records.
Let’s turn on that nice lamp.
Cats intuitively understand “some nice.” But cats have their own advice.
Tabby’s Place is, you will be astonished to learn, designed entirely around cats. The ramps are right-sized for their little otter-bodies to skitter and slide up and down; the cubbies are constructed to comfortingly contain fifteen-poundish persons; the solaria are built to serve feline sundancing; everything, and I mean everything, can survive a super-soaking by some nice bleach.
Almost everything.
There are very few inconveniences in this little slice of heaven — the nonexistence of a bologna fountain, the unfortunate timing of wet food deliveries (twice, rather than forty-twice, daily), and the need of humans to have needs.
Nudgy little nebbishes, those humans.
But if cats are to be served — and cats were born to be served, served like sultans and supermodels and swaggering swashbucklers of splendor (I can neither confirm nor deny that CAT wrote that line) — their serfs and vassals must have certain basic needs met.
Which sets everyone up for some nice negotiations.
If the bologna and insulin and wand toys and catnip-stuffed plush unicorns are to continue, humans must raise money. If the victorious cats are to consolidate their sole proprietorship of Tabby’s Place, lesser cats must be adopted out, with human assistance. If the feedings are to be increased (THE FEEDINGS ARE INDEED TO BE INCREASED), volunteers must be acquired, indoctrinated, and exponentially increased in number.
And all these flumbering folks need things like offices and bagels and lamps and bathrooms.
(Let the reader understand that cats will never understand this last luxury: litter boxes are efficient and elegant and eminently enough for any self-respecting emperor at the top of the food chain, so why do the bipeds fuss over those flushy water-chairs anyway?)
Flumbering folks, in fact, need some nice things.
But we may think we need more than we actually do. For this education, we are blessed to have cats.
We think we need some nice trinkets: ceramic cats dressed like leprechauns to festivate upon our reception desk, or bowls to share our Starbursts, or mugs to contain our coffee (a substance which even cats grudgingly admit we appear to genuinely need), or printers not designed to operate at optimum capacity when peed upon.
The cats know: we need some nice indifference to the tyranny of possessions. (CAT offers a catdult education course on Corrosive Consumerism in Suite C every Tuesday at 7. BYOBologna, of course.)
And so they say, “let’s have some nice deconstruction.”
CAT puts tchotchkes in “perspective.” (CAT’s words, not mine.)
CAT carries Sweet ‘n Low packets in her mouth to their doom.
CAT says, “let’s mug some nice mugs,” and mugs them to mincemeat. (CAT has also taken up a formal complaint with the Mean Meat People — cats know how to find such persons — regarding the nefarious naming of this vile substance, composed of 0% meat and 100% injustice. Friggin’ walnuts, people?)
CAT lands a TKO on a certain pot of faux lavender so many times, it becomes apparent this is not the usual “cat grins at gravity” game, but an actual interior design decision, such that the lavender is now consciously placed on its lifeless side next to the recycling bin. This is just where we keep it now.
CAT pees on papers at every level of importance. (Where was that nuclear nonproliferation treaty, anyway…?)
They don’t mean harm. They mean hapless happiness. They mean to conduct some nice experiments, adding to the mountain of evidence that life is, in fact, hilarious after all.
It’s enough to make a needy biped sigh and say, “this is why we can’t have nice things!”
But we can, kittens, we can.
We just need to remember the nougaty heart of “nice.”
And as long as we have our flushy bowls and our bagels and the means to make music for the cats who make our lives sing, we have it all.
So let them break the leprechaun figurines.
Let them harm the lucky charms.
Let them chew our earrings and jam their faces in our coffees and gum up the works of our workdays.
Let’s have some nice laughter. Let’s have some nice lightheartedness. Let’s make some nice memories that can’t be unmade by the scamps who save us from ourselves.
And, by request of CAT: let’s listen to those Neil Diamond records after all. After all, we’re all forever in blue jeans around here (and we know better than to bring them flowers anymore).