Crazy Cat Cults

There are many types of people in this world: the shy and outgoing, the loyal and the liars, Chevy or Ford, righteous and sinners, the rational and the redheads.

Me, I’m a dog person.

I love my dogs. They are all of the above descriptions with a love beyond scope. I have heard, dogs may only be here for part of your life, but to a dog, you are their entire life. I have always had dogs and they have always been the highlights of my life on this planet.

To this day my dogs are my life. I have three and they are all as different as any two people can be. But they are all loyal and full of unconditional love.

I find myself awake a lot at night; one, because I’m a performer and that’s when most of the performances take place. It would suck to sleep through one of my performances both for me and the audience. It would suck more if the audience slept through my performances.

Two, because of my disorder; I never know when my body will do weird things, like not sleep or inversely, sleep. There are still times when I just have to concede that I am tired; no matter what’s happening around me or what project I’m on, my body will shut down and I will fall asleep.

Sometimes I find myself lying awake staring at the ceiling, yes, I know I’m blind and it’s also dark at night, but I know the ceiling is still there. As I lie there staring into the darkness (better?) I usually find myself where I am right now, typing away on my computer taking the crazy out for a walk.

I think that’s what it is; the crazy wants out to play. It has been locked up all day in the cold grey cage of my mind — so it doesn’t scare away other people. When I lay down to sleep, it’s awake and wants out to play.

So instead of lying there wondering if — and trying to —and not succeeding in falling asleep, I turn on my computer and let the crazy run free for a little while.

On this particular night, as I started to climb discreetly out of bed to take crazy out for a stroll, I had a wave of love and warmth spread over me like I rarely feel. Usually, when this happens I am hoping I didn’t just wet the bed.

This was different and a lot more pleasant than the warmth of wetting the bed. I soon realized that in my tossing and turning to try and get the cray-cray to go back to sleep, one of my dogs had cuddled right up with me, pressing his entire body against mine.

Zeke is a full grown 80-pound black lab so when I say his whole body it was my whole body as well. It wasn’t like that’s where he just landed and decided this is comfortable, it was more like a gesture of love and support. Like somehow he knew I was having a rough battle with my alter ego and he wanted me to be reassured that I wasn’t alone.

If I moved, so did he; making sure he was pressed up against me like a blanket or dare I say, comforter. I know that there are those of you that are thinking that he was just lying there because it was comfortable for him or that’s just what dogs do — to you, I say pshaw. Yes, I say PSHAW. (Used to express irritation, disapproval, contempt, or disbelief)

There’s a reason that dogs are used for service animals. After all, have you ever heard of a service cat? Not an emotional support animal, which is neither endorsed nor validated by the Americans with Disabilities Act, but an actual service animal?

Could you imagine the chaos and helter-skelter mayhem that I as a blind person would go through on a daily basis if there were Seeing Eye Cats? Pardon my language but cats are soulless self-serving, egomaniacal, frigid, soulless, ASSHOLES! Oh, and did I mention soulless?

They would be worse at leading me around than my “friends,” who believe it funny to watch me try and navigate 'through' instead of 'around' things.

I could see it now, walking me right into things and then looking at me with that smugness that only cats can muster, “Oh yeah, look out for that.” Or push me off a curb or ledge, lead me in random patterns making me think we’re actually getting somewhere, but in reality, we have just walked 7 miles in my own yard and then just lay down, right there, because he’s just not feeling it.

When is the last time you heard a news story where a vicious attack cat scared off an aspiring burglar or purred in code so that people would know ‘Timmy fell down a well’ — the cat probably pushed him down the well to begin with; — Thank God for Lassie.

I truly believe that cats have no soul so they steal the souls of their human sycophants. Every time I have interactions with someone who is a cat person this gets verified. All cat people are the same; they believe that their cat is so cute and so cuddly that everyone in the world needs — nay, “MUST” love them.

Cats brainwash their humans into believing that they are there to serve the cat empire, and the crazy cat people believe it. The internet is full of these cult creatures that have invaded their “owners” minds and controlled them into incessantly talking about them and videoing their actions. These cultists make Christopher Walken look sane.

I can’t count the number of times I have seen posts on social media sites where the humanoid part of this symbiotic, unhealthy, co-dependent relationship is posting about some real issue, you know like — how the hair on one side of their body grows longer or faster than the other side, or the fact that they really hate cleaning the lint out of the dryer, all super important topics on social media and suddenly, as I am entranced by the growing hair story and waiting in full anticipation for the climax, it suddenly and catastrophically turns to, “oh, my cat!”

“OH, MY CAT?”

“So I was measuring my arm hair to see if I was going crazy or not and I — oh, oh my gosh, oh, oh, the sweetest thing just happened, my cat clawed the curtains to shreds.” Or, the damn cat is just lying there with that look on their face confirming my earlier assessment and its disciple is like, “I just can’t help it — he’s so cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute.”  (You all know the cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute sound, like fingernails on a chalkboard.)

It is my contention that people are absolutely normal until they procure a cat and then they are entranced into believing that the whole world cares about their said cat. Every picture, every post, every sentence, it’s like a grandparent with a new baby photo.

If you don’t know who this person is in your life, look in a mirror, you’re the annoying cat person.

Ok, where was I? I told you sometimes the crazy needs out. Oh yeah, not sleeping, so I decided to take the crazy for a walk across the pages of this blog and slowly climb out of bed as not to disturb my wife who is softly snoring and the dog who’s snoring loudly.

As I make my way through the darkness, which is second nature to me now, my second dog is on the floor right below my side of the bed. Odee is also a full grown black lab so trying to find footing on the floor and not her is no easy task.

I’m also getting used to finding things under my feet so I skirt around her, grab my bathrobe and as I’m headed out the bedroom door there’s my third dog lying across the doorway. Ollie is our protector, half lab half Great Pyrenees, so when I say he’s across the doorway — his 110-pound body takes up the entire doorway.

Now all these things can be dismissed as, ‘they were where they were the most comfortable,’ or ‘see they’re assholes too because they were trying to trip you up’, or ‘dogs are always under your feet blocking your path.’

But then something heartwarming happened. All three dogs slowly got up as not to awaken my still snoring wife and followed me into my office and as I sat down to start writing all three curled back up as close to me as they could, placing their heads on my lap and feet and went back to sleep.

They were there for me, they somehow knew that I was battling the demon of sleep and they wanted to comfort and console me. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. I like people, but I love dogs.

SP