okieinexile
Well-Known Member
Cat Chemistry
By Bobby Neal Winters
One of the three cats my family is currently infested with bears the name Stars. This is because Stars has a black coat is that flecked with deep golden spots the same by the night sky is with stars. Stars considers herself to be an indoor cat, who—by a great miscarriage of justice—has been banished to the cruel outside world. This is not so bad during the summer, but during then winter, when her feet get cold, she misses her rightful place in the world. On many a cold morning, she will climb the door that separates our kitchen from the frigid world she is forced to inhabit, place her face in one of the panes of glass, and meow pitifully. It is quite humorous to watch when you have a hot cup of coffee in your hand.
It seems at times that she is trying to wish her way through the glass, and I believe she is. You see, at one time Stars was a “virtual cat” who had the ability to transport herself between different places in the space-time continuum.
From time to time—usually over coffee and donuts—I like to dabble in the study of some of the universe’s deeper mysteries. You may remember I have developed theories—which have, because of closed-mindedness and professional jealousy, been ignored by the scientific establishment—concerning “virtual cats” and the “cat number” of a household.
As these are esoteric concepts, a bit of review is in order. Virtual cats exist in another dimension and are winking in and out of our universe all the time. In the proper conditions—such as a bowl of warm cream—these virtual cats can be caught at the precise moment they enter into our dimension and made “real.” They repay those who grant them reality by ridding their yards and the immediate vicinity of songbirds and baby squirrels, while leaving mice to prosper.
Humans are unable to see virtual cats when they temporarily wink into existence for microscopic intervals of time, but dogs can. This was discovered by a neighbor of mine who noticed her dogs barking idiotically at empty air for no apparent reason. The obvious answer to this mystery is the virtual cat.
You may also recall that each household has a fixed cat number indicating the number of cats that any given house is supposed to have. For example, my home has a cat number equal to three. Any time we lose a cat, a virtual cat is made real to increase us to our assigned number, and any time we attempt to get a fourth cat, one of our menagerie mysteriously disappears.
Indeed, not too long ago when we made a misguided attempt to include a cat named Squishy in household, the poor creature wound up disappearing from our environs and then reappearing several miles south of town at the home of some friends who have a higher cat number than we do.
Science, however, does not rest on its laurels and progress has been made since these discoveries. The theory of cats has been sufficiently developed so that we may now discuss more advanced concepts.
We can notice, for example, that cats exist around homes the same way electrons exist around atoms. The study of how atoms combine by sharing electrons is called Chemistry, so a similar study of house houses combine by sharing cats would be called Cat Chemistry.
And I have discovered a phenomenon I call “cat sharing.” This is the condition in which one cat is shared between two houses. We discovered we were involved in cat sharing when my eldest daughter crossed the street to sell Girl Scout Cookies to the Lady Violist. Our cat, a neutered Tom named Ziggy, had accompanied my daughter on her trip and was greeted at the door by the Lady Violist who called him Tiger. It was an odd feeling to learn our household was part of what I’ve come to call a cat molecule, or a catecule, for short.
Catecules are formed by cat sharing in the same way molecules are formed when atoms share electrons. I’ve learned that the Lady Violist also shares a cat with someone else who lives two blocks away. That means my family and she are part of a huge catecule that is at least three blocks long.
This is far from an isolated phenomenon as my mother-in-law shares a cat of the name Earl T. Grey with one of her neighbors. This is unusual in the sense that Earl is really just her summer/daytime cat as the neighbors provide him a house with a heated floor. One might hypothesize that if it becomes too nice at Earl’s primary house, my mother-in-law’s home might lose its cat and become ionized.
At this point, my research is stymied by lack of funding. Great ideas like these require a lot of coffee and donuts to form, and the government is spending its money on other things. In the mean time, I will be staring at a cat hanging from my kitchen door.
By Bobby Neal Winters
One of the three cats my family is currently infested with bears the name Stars. This is because Stars has a black coat is that flecked with deep golden spots the same by the night sky is with stars. Stars considers herself to be an indoor cat, who—by a great miscarriage of justice—has been banished to the cruel outside world. This is not so bad during the summer, but during then winter, when her feet get cold, she misses her rightful place in the world. On many a cold morning, she will climb the door that separates our kitchen from the frigid world she is forced to inhabit, place her face in one of the panes of glass, and meow pitifully. It is quite humorous to watch when you have a hot cup of coffee in your hand.
It seems at times that she is trying to wish her way through the glass, and I believe she is. You see, at one time Stars was a “virtual cat” who had the ability to transport herself between different places in the space-time continuum.
From time to time—usually over coffee and donuts—I like to dabble in the study of some of the universe’s deeper mysteries. You may remember I have developed theories—which have, because of closed-mindedness and professional jealousy, been ignored by the scientific establishment—concerning “virtual cats” and the “cat number” of a household.
As these are esoteric concepts, a bit of review is in order. Virtual cats exist in another dimension and are winking in and out of our universe all the time. In the proper conditions—such as a bowl of warm cream—these virtual cats can be caught at the precise moment they enter into our dimension and made “real.” They repay those who grant them reality by ridding their yards and the immediate vicinity of songbirds and baby squirrels, while leaving mice to prosper.
Humans are unable to see virtual cats when they temporarily wink into existence for microscopic intervals of time, but dogs can. This was discovered by a neighbor of mine who noticed her dogs barking idiotically at empty air for no apparent reason. The obvious answer to this mystery is the virtual cat.
You may also recall that each household has a fixed cat number indicating the number of cats that any given house is supposed to have. For example, my home has a cat number equal to three. Any time we lose a cat, a virtual cat is made real to increase us to our assigned number, and any time we attempt to get a fourth cat, one of our menagerie mysteriously disappears.
Indeed, not too long ago when we made a misguided attempt to include a cat named Squishy in household, the poor creature wound up disappearing from our environs and then reappearing several miles south of town at the home of some friends who have a higher cat number than we do.
Science, however, does not rest on its laurels and progress has been made since these discoveries. The theory of cats has been sufficiently developed so that we may now discuss more advanced concepts.
We can notice, for example, that cats exist around homes the same way electrons exist around atoms. The study of how atoms combine by sharing electrons is called Chemistry, so a similar study of house houses combine by sharing cats would be called Cat Chemistry.
And I have discovered a phenomenon I call “cat sharing.” This is the condition in which one cat is shared between two houses. We discovered we were involved in cat sharing when my eldest daughter crossed the street to sell Girl Scout Cookies to the Lady Violist. Our cat, a neutered Tom named Ziggy, had accompanied my daughter on her trip and was greeted at the door by the Lady Violist who called him Tiger. It was an odd feeling to learn our household was part of what I’ve come to call a cat molecule, or a catecule, for short.
Catecules are formed by cat sharing in the same way molecules are formed when atoms share electrons. I’ve learned that the Lady Violist also shares a cat with someone else who lives two blocks away. That means my family and she are part of a huge catecule that is at least three blocks long.
This is far from an isolated phenomenon as my mother-in-law shares a cat of the name Earl T. Grey with one of her neighbors. This is unusual in the sense that Earl is really just her summer/daytime cat as the neighbors provide him a house with a heated floor. One might hypothesize that if it becomes too nice at Earl’s primary house, my mother-in-law’s home might lose its cat and become ionized.
At this point, my research is stymied by lack of funding. Great ideas like these require a lot of coffee and donuts to form, and the government is spending its money on other things. In the mean time, I will be staring at a cat hanging from my kitchen door.
! although I was mildly alarmed after misreading the first sentence.