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Aug

17

Lolcat

Filed Under Family, General | 7 Comments

This post has nothing to do with comics. This is just me thinking about things, as I would often do when my mind wanders. When I’m having lunch there’s this cat that hangs outside our backdoor wall, waiting to be fed. He’s not our cat. I don’t think he’s anyone’s cat. I’ve seen him around all over the place, looking for other cats among the chickens. Outside, this cat doesn’t know who I am and doesn’t even respond to me. In fact, he even runs away from me. But when he’s at the backdoor, he’s my best friend, as he eyes the fish in my hand. He meows demandingly, as if I owe him this fish. I’ve taken to calling this cat Lolcat. So when he’s here, he’s kind of my cat, but most of the time, he’s not.

Once in a while Lolcat would appear at the wall with a large bloody gash on his side. Sometimes he would appear with a swollen paw, unable to jump. Sometimes he would appear, mouth open full of saliva. Turns out he would sometimes get some fish with a large bone somewhere and it gets stuck in his mouth or throat. I would try to help him if I could, but then he would disappear for days. I thought he would be dead. But he would turn up sometime later, perfectly all right, once again demanding food. I swear this cat has more than nine lives. He ought to have been dead several times over. I’ve seen him get injuries that would have killed other cats. But not this one. This one is a survivor.

It got me thinking, you know, Elmer style, what if this cat was human? It’s got to be a really lonely life. He has no friends, no family. He’s all alone. He doesn’t know where he’s going to get his food tomorrow and how he’s going to survive. And if gets sick or critically injured there is no one there to help him, no one there to keep him company or hold his hand and tell them everything is going to be all right. It’s terrifying. If Lolcat was human he would have gone insane from loneliness and despair.

So perhaps this is an argument for animals not really having the intelligence and consciousness like ours. Because it they thought and felt like us, animals like Lolcat and other animals under similar circumstances would just go insane. This is perhaps why animals can survive on their own like this. They don’t have any silly psychological and emotional problems to think about. It’s all instinct.

I don’t want to be like that though. I like having friends. I like having people I can count on and depend on. I like having someone hold my hand when I dearly need it.

Comments

7 Responses to “Lolcat”

  1. Danry Ocampo on August 17th, 2011 3:06 pm

    Hi Gerry,

    You really have talent in telling a good story. Thanks for sharing.

    Read BLACKSAD. Its kinda related…Well kinda.

    Salamat po.

    Danry

  2. John Ray on August 17th, 2011 7:37 pm

    Sir Gerry

    I had a cat once too. It used to hang out outside our house by the mango tree. I began to feed and take care of it and we became good friends. After some time, she became pregnant and gave birth to three kittens. Sadly, she never took care of them and left them behind. The kittens died and she never came back to our house. If she was human, I would never forgive her for what she did to her offspring.

    Thanks for sharing Gerry.

  3. raipo on August 17th, 2011 7:57 pm

    The LOLCAT demands you feed and take care of him! So says the LOLCAT!

  4. Jose Mari Lee on August 18th, 2011 1:41 am

    What I love about cats is: they’re warm and cuddly. The feeling of a cat sound asleep and purring on top of my chest is heavenly. It makes me sleep so soundly as well (especially when the spirits who tend to bother me when I’m sleeping do not shake my bed), one of the luxuries in life that there isn’t any amount of money can buy.

    Mark Twain once said: “If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.”

    What an apt description of a cat’s nature!

    Cat’s are absolutely independent minded, business like, have that “the devil may care attitude”, beautiful, enigmatic and easy-to-care for. Despite being domesticated by the Egyptians for about 4,000 years, cats remain mind-boggling and free-spirited. When they get bored of their dull masters, cats would definitely take off and search somewhere else where his fancy would be challenged. Their true nature remains after all these years, despite being domesticated, their predisposed nature of being a hunter. It remains deep in the caverns of their wild animal heart.

    In north America, some humans are like cats. Many also want to take off from their families and live somewhere else. Like some belligerent cats, they too, would show others what they’re made of if you touch them by their tails. Yes, indeed, they became homeless by choice. And since laws in this part of the world are powerless as long as the person involved is not being a threat to others and to himself, then he is free to roam like homeless cats. And if you talk to them, they’ll tell you that they don’t care about their family, career, social standing, or any concern of most human’s stupid dreams and aspirations. Like cats, they come and go as they please.

    There was this professor emeritus in a Canadian university, who, one day, just decided to live like a stray cat. Left his career, his mansion, his loved ones. One morning, on the front page of the Vancouver Sun was a horrible news: the professor was killed by an addict. The professor was sleeping under the Georgia Street viaduct (where Kurt Cobain had as well, when he was a teenager and was moving around Seattle and Vancouver, BC as a homeless person). The addict dropped a huge boulder on the professor’s head while the latter was sound asleep.

    We can’t say for sure whether humans learned how to think like cats from cats, or cats learned how to think like humans from humans, but definitely, some humans thinks like cats, and some cats think like humans. This premise will never receive an A+ in a philosophy class, but the statement is more or less not a statement of fact but more or less a paradox to express an enigmatic relationship between the two species :)

    Together for so many years, both could have learned from each other, not through birthright obviously, but rather through the process of osmosis. I’m sure cats and humans will remain to live – together and apart – forever.

  5. JOSH on August 20th, 2011 10:20 am

    Hehe, we also have couple of stray cats wandering around in our house. They would ended up being a regular visitors because we always giving food (tirang pagkain) for them.

    I personally like cats though I’m not use to taking care of animals for pet. I guess one thing that I love about cats is that you can just leave them there and they won’t do anything that would annoy you… unless the cat is a fish thief XD

  6. graceagustin on August 21st, 2011 8:17 pm

    I used to have pet cats before my married life and i love felidae. Sir, maybe you could try to feed Lolcat and see if you could be friends.Maybe if someone would regularly feed him, he would stop taking fish from some houses and getting all beaten up to death. By the way, is Lolcat a he or a she? Start feeding Lolcat to find out.:)Nice article, sir.

  7. dict on August 30th, 2011 10:32 pm

    2006 back then,there was this scavenger kitten at the other side of the road at the garbage dump that draw my attention.even though it was dirty, it is cute.its eyes were big and shiny and i notice it was very hungry.it almost hit by a bus,because of the sound that i made.whiss whiss 6x..Thank God it is safe.i take the kitten put it in my back pack.ride the bus to home.almost asleep,the sound in my back pack woke me up.pull the zipper and i saw the kitten eating my siopao.i brought it home and became my pet but only for a week.i notice that its like a dog,whenever i got home from work it start to make a sound and goes to me.sadly 3days past the kitten died.My dad said it wont eat because your not around.i buried the kitten at the small garden in our compound.