Damien Galeone

I have to learn this position for Cat Day

I had the idea this morning.

6:30:48 a.m. I was standing above the impossibly warm and comfortable bed I’d left moments before to smash the living daylights out of the thing making the ungodly beeping sound.

Glaring at the warm coil of covers I had just left, I noticed a form creep onto the bed and poke around the covers.

Bela the cat was relaxed and satisfied from the meal she’d pestered me to feed her 2 hours earlier. So after flicking the covers, shedding another cat’s worth of fur on the pillow, and letting out a yawn, she slipped under the covers and began a nap that would surely last until I got home 16 hours later.

Jealousy. Envy.

The idea came to me in the shower – one day I will act like a cat. I will have a Cat Day.

That day will be Sunday.

If you are like me and live with a cat, you expend a lot of feelings on that animal. There’s confusion, love, confusion, exasperation, confusion, calm, confusion, jealousy, confusion, and irritation. And confusion.

So, in order to understand the little beast more, this Sunday I am going to live a day in the life of a cat.

I am going to sleep in naked comfort and I am going to do it until something happens. Forget this whole “I feel like I’m wasting the day” morality issue. I’m sleeping until someone worthwhile comes around and offers to feed me. Or maybe until a good movie comes on. Or I have to pee.

Shower? No thank you. I am only going to clean parts of me that I can reach with my tongue. Maybe I’ll try licking my stomach or my spine like the cat does.

On this the Day of the Cat, I am not going to prepare one meal for myself. Nope. I am going to allow other people the pleasure of feeding me. And while they are preparing my meal, I’ll ask them 100 times when my food is coming. After they serve it, I’ll walk away and come back when the food interests me more. Then I’ll throw some of it on the floor before I eat it, because fuck you and your floor!

I am going to pester a friend to meet me at the pub. I will call him 200 times if need be; I’ll beg, I’ll plead, I’ll say anything to get them there. Then, when they arrive, I will show my appreciation by sitting on his lap – paying special attention to the bladder. And then when I lull him into a false sense of calm, I’ll choose the closest exposed skin and bite it until it bleeds. Then I’ll have a few beers and completely ignore him. Because I don’t need you!

I am going to spend two whole hours in places where I have to get past people who are sitting down. Like on buses and crowded metros. I don’t care if I have to buy tickets to a play or a concert or a sporting event. Once there I am going to walk down the aisle dozens of times and always, always, always give them the ass. And it’s going to take a loooooong time for me to get past. I will play this game until I am removed or punched in the face. Then I will sulk.

(NB: Cat Day aside, this might just be a fun way to pay Czech people back for a decade of spatially-related irritation)

I am going to spend a lot of time intensely staring at things behind people and then sprinting back and forth down the street. I will do this until a police officer is summoned to make me stop. Then I will rub against his legs. Then I’ll call a friend to bail me out. This friend will be different from the one who I met at the pub, since he will no longer be my friend.

To finish off the day, I’m going to eat something that makes me sick (like my neighbor’s roses) and puke it up on a rug. Then I’ll carve up my favorite armchair with a steak knife. Then I’ll get a haircut on my couch.

What a glorious day.

What else would you do on Cat Day?